The aim of my bachelor’s thesis was to evaluate development of Czechoslovakian school atlases.
In theoretical part a table with all atlases created from year 1922 up to the present was created. From year 1922 up to the present 127 school atlases were published. Just 7 atlases were selected and were analysed because analysing all 127 atlases would be impossible. Cartographical analysis was focused on content, structure, cartographical expression methods, cartographical projections and scales. Czechoslovakian school atlases came through big changes in last 70 years. Modern atlases contain cartographical expression methods which were not used in the past (choropleth maps and pie charts for instance), they have bigger amount of thematic maps and their content is richer in total. In atlases older than 1971 we can find more geographical maps than thematic maps. From 1938 many cartographical projections were used but nowadays the amount of used projections is not that big as it was before. Maps with small scale are usually used in atlases. The most used scale through all atlases was 1 : 80 000 000. Atlases from year 2011 do not contain maps with big scale. From the point of view of structure by order of continents, it is possible to claim that the order has not changed much from 1955. The only exception is atlas from 2003. Interesting fact is that the third edition of the same atlas from the same publisher (Kartografie Praha, a.s.) 14 years later has got the same order of continents as most of other atlases. Atlases have usually this order of continents:
Europe – Asia – Africa – America – Australia – Arctic/Antarctica
In practical part two eye-tracking experiments were created and they compared two groups of respondents. First group were students of geoinformatics. In this group we can suppose bigger knowledge of cartography than in the second group which contains students from elementary schools and high schools. The comparison of men and women was also created. The first experiment in E-T laboratory contained simple tasks which aim was to point out on expected flaws in atlases. Between both groups the speed and correctness of answers were compared. From results it is possible to see two major problems in some atlases. The first problem was a similarity of symbols used in some maps and the second problem was insufficient colour differentiation for different features visualised in maps. Cartographers were one second faster than non-cartographers when solving tasks on average and their success of answers was 92,14 %. Success of answers of non-cartographers was just 80,14 %. Cartographers also spend more time with reading the legend a their view of map is more varied when talking about reading basic compositional features. Users like modern atlases more from the point of view of their colours, design and category focused on space as it possible to see in second experiment. Users also appreciate photos and modern graphic. All given aims were successfully accomplished and each step was consulted with supervisor.