Report

The design process:

The general design process was as followed:

• Based on the techniques from the book we came up with a few ideas.
• Then we combined the ideas that worked out successful
• Evaluated the result
• Used different techniques and inspirations from other teams
• Improved/changed the concept

Before we actually started to design a map we went to go and explore the assignment itself. We went to actually walk the route ourselves. Seeing sites and taking pictures of the terrain to get more feeling of the assignment. Also we wanted to know where the nice places were and what was actually interesting to see when you are in the city centre. The route itself seemed more of an indicator on where people could go and was more a guiding route then a strict path to follow.

We also took pictures to use later on but the weather was a bit too bad. We tried to use the pictures to start of an idea. In one route we would show the bad weather pictures and in the other route we would show pictures taken in good weather. People would like to see the pictures that were taken in nice weather and dislike the pictures taken in bad weather. The pictures taken in good weather are more appealing and should catch more attention. Also based on color techniques from the book, it would also make sense that good weather pictures would appeal more. They show more details and could show people what nice museums, shops or sceneries there are in Delft.

The first concept was based on the idea by arranging pictures in a certain order we could point tourist in a direction that was either satisfactory to the museums or to the shop owners. The thing that makes this assignment more difficult to achieve is that people must have a choice to choose either left or right. This design does give the tourist a clear direction in which they should be going. But it lacked the subtleness. This was also noted by us but it might be good to take a step ahead to use the techniques in the book and then take a step back to put more subtlety in the design. Thought the problem with subtlety is that it will influence people even less and the techniques from the books can only be shown moderately. But that will be discussed later.

First off all we started with a concept that had very obvious ways, to point the tourist in a direction. The emphasis was put on a 2.5D technique. Pictures of either museum were shown in a circular pattern and by using size gradients we thought to guide the visitors either the left way or the right way. In this manner we tried to show the level of hierarchy in which the biggest is the starting point. The smallest picture is considered the last one and also less important according to theory. We also lighted up parts of the map to point visitors in a direction. We also put the map either on the right or left side of the grid so that would help visitors to take either left or right first. If it was on the right side people would see the left part of the route more in the centre and go to the left. If it was on the left side the right side of the route would appear more in the centre.

The feedback from the tutor, on our first concept, also pointed out that our design lacked subtlety and that we are to give the visitors of Delft a choice in either going left or right. Our design would not give tourists a choice in going either left or right. And it would not be useful as a map. Since the pictures do not point exactly where the shops exactly are on the map or where the museums are. Also we discussed in the tutor meeting about the pictures that we made of the places that tourists could visit. Most of these pictures were pictures of buildings. The tourists could then only see what they should be looking for but the picture of a building does not show what can be seen or how people can interact. Some other pictures we took did show more that some people were having a good time or that tourists could relate more to themselves. Another suggestion was to make the pictures more into conventional icons that could actually still make the map readable. And use the warmer colors that we used in other concept ideas. The warmer colors are in general more attractive to people and would more subtly point tourist in a direction.

After the first feedback we designed new maps and let those be judged by the tutor.

2.5D

We have thought a lot about keeping the 2.5d aspect in the map. We experimented a lot with that from the beginning. The first thing that we did was putting the entire map in perspective. We tried to guide visitors in this way to the left or right In this way. We actually rotated the map a little. The perspective of the map made one side of the map shorter than the other side. Roads that look shorter also have museums or shops that are closer. We would expect users to choose the shorter side first. But as we tried to add more information to it we also discovered that it would make the map less useful as a map. Because otherwise we would either leave out too much information to make the map “clean” or put the information required on a map to guide visitors but that would make this map too chaotic. In perspective the icons and other street names would be too cramped up in one place. In this way you would only be able to see the icons and won’t be able to see much of the streets.

Color

In this part there were actually two stages in which we first designed icons with warmer color and icons with colder, darker color. The overall background was also a cold o dark color. We used blue for this. We kept a darker blue for the icons because they should be a little more visible than the route but less visible than the other icons. The differences can still be observed but the visitor would not really know that the other icons are a bit less “attractive”. The element that we used for the final concept was the contrast between the warm and cold colors.

Storyboard

When designing different ideas that we could perhaps use for the final concept, we also stumbled on a different problem. That is that people already have a mind set on something they would like to see in Delft when they go there. Mostly it is or the museums. So we tried to guide people with pictures but differently placed than the first concept. The pictures are also connected to the places that they belong to. Still as said before, the pictures could have been better if there were more people in it that people could relate to. We designed two storyboards to give people a subtle indication which way they could go to. The lines are currently white but is was suggested we could use the same color technique as the previous color idea and make the lines a more colder/darker color to let them blend more in the background. This would also make the map less chaotic. The storyboard is something we used to give people more an indication on what there is to see in Delft besides the obvious museums.

Streetnames

There was another group “scabuhu” who tried something with fonts and street names to point people in a direction. We tried sort of the same thing but that only led to a strange design. Street names were shown upside down. This was an unconventional way to read maps. It would seem that it was a bit overdone in our design. One street name changed would seem sufficient. Then again we did not add pictures or other places in this design. It would not seem complete but it did prove that the idea was not very successful.

Though we designed quite a few ideas, the map itself did not seem to be satisfactory as an actual map. There were only four places for the shopping route indicated and four places for the museum route. On an actual map it would be more likely to have more indicators on it even though it is only about the museum route or the shop route. It is necessary for people to know more details. Some important or big public transport services are important. Also other important places like the new church or delftware shops need to be on the map.

Research & Final map

Theory we used:

For designing this final map we used the design techniques described by Colin Ware in his book “Visual Thinking for Design"

There are a few subtle things to point the user in the “right” direction. Subtleness was the main point we had thought about. Actually still letting participants have a choice. Main techniques were:

• Colour contrast.

• Occlusion on the spot with the new church and delftware store.

• Graphical objects ordered spacially.

• Graphical objects having the same shape.

• Storytelling

Conclusions from the test:

There are some factors on which the map has no influence. When we try to include all the useful information for tourist it comes to our attention that most tourists already have plans. The following reasons people have mentioned that we did not have influence on:

• “I always want food first, so I go to the nearest restaurant” (on route p, clockwise)

• “I always want to take the straight roads first” (on route p, clockwise, and route k.)

• “At the end I want to take the tram again, I would be too tired” (on route k, anti-clockwise)

• “The war museum is closest so I will go there first”

There were a total of 24 participants for our test. We showed them either the p-route or k-route map first. Then we showed the second map and let them point out the difference. The picture above shows on which points the users saw differences. Though they saw that the colors were changed the most it did not seem to have much influence on their choice.

It is noticeable that for both route we had the same results. This could indicate that people have a strong idea to where they want to go. The techniques might work better in a more abstract setting but then the map would be less. The proximity and shorter distance towards the war museum probably makes users go first counter-clockwise.

Test websites:

http://12goonline.com/p/

http://12goonline.com/k/

Discussion:

The outcome of this assignment is a big poster/map that would be placed in Delft's train station. So it should communicate immediately with the audience in order to help them memorizing the whole direction and route.

According to the assignment we have to present the visitors two opposite direction in one route in a way that they have freedom of choice between two directions. So it's unavoidable to have an abstract and obvious setup to have a simple map, otherwise audience is unable to memorize it and it became useless. On the other hand we have to give specific information to the audience in order to lead them to a certain route.

At the same time regarding the assignment, we have kept the whole structure as subtle as we can so the poster does not give the audience a certain direction. They also should not recognize the difference between two maps, while the setups of the elements lead them unconsciously to one of the directions each time.

These two factors are playing two opposite roles in the whole setup. When you give the map subtleness to avoid pursuing people to take one of the directions, the other element starts fading away and the unclearness and confusion take place in the whole setup.

In addition, rules and guides of the book are not applicable in such an assignment. There are some basic rules about differentiation but they are not helpful in this challenging topic.