Comments on You Are Here: Maps 101

Emily Muth — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:52:19 GMT

nice job

Nathan Shedroff — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:28 GMT

I’ld just like to add that it’s not always advisable to “take away” all extraneous detail since you’re not always sure what’s going to be extraneous to everybody. A good example is if you strip every street off of a map except the ones you expect people to travel along. This ensures that if someone makes a wrong turn, encounters a detour, or passes the correct street, they are not “off the map” and have no way to get back on it (without backtracking, if they know for sure they’ve passed the street).

This is a good example of the difference between simplicity and clarity. Map designers have to strive for clarity—especially for commercial or consumer maps—since the maps have to serve so many purposes. This isa good thing. Simplicity often leads to oversimplification where not enough data is present and, therefore, not enough context. Clarity is making all of the data clear enough to be easily read and followed while allowing it to provide (sometimes many) levels of context). BTW, clarity and subtlety are not opposed. Subtelty and focus probably are.

Some of the bet maps I’ve ever seen were created by my co-workers at TheUnderstandingBusiness for the Rand McNally USATLAS in 1990 and 1991. They’re not for sale anymore but you may be able to find a copy at a used book store.

RuthK — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:28 GMT

Joel,

I’ve been out of the cartography world for a while now, but here are some of the books I have learned a lot from. These are about principles of cartography — for example, how maps are imbued with meaning (semiotics, visual design, perception and interpretation) and how to design appropriate symbologies — not the technical and programming aspects of GIS and other cartographic systems.

How Maps Work, Alan MacEachren
The Power of Maps, Denis Wood
Mapping it out, Mark Monmonier
How to Lie with Maps, Mark Monmonier

The text used in my cartography courses at Rutgers U.:
Elements of Cartography, Arthur Robinson, et. al.

They’re all available at Amazon.com.

I hope this helps,
Ruth

Joel — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:28 GMT

Where is a good place to go learn about map design? I have a computer science background, but my current position involves a lot of cartography. Unfortunately, I don’t know anyone else who does this kind of stuff. Are there other websites or books I should read for principles of map design? Thank you.

erin — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:28 GMT

These seem much more akin to Concept maps than Site Maps per se, in my opinion. I think that showing the visual relationships between bits and parts of content can help a user make the mental relationships and create a spatial model of the site, but it may be difficult to then relate it back to the website.
I think one of the points of the article is that clarity and appropriate level of detail is one of the keys to a successful map – geographical or otherwise.

Ron — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:28 GMT

Who says maps must have anything to do with geography in the first place?
Are the following not “site maps” in the truest sense (?);
http://www.1-900-870-6235.com/HawkingMap.htm
http://www.1-900-870-6235.com/BurkeMap.htm
http://www.1-900-870-6235.com/Navigation/GATESmap.htm

george — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:28 GMT

Well it points to an important issue among maps—the importance of literal respresentations of space vs. simplifying for clarity and comprehendability.

The genius of the tube map is that it stripped away irrelevant detail for its typical usage.

For example, the last time I went to London, I caught the train from Heathrow to Paddington and then took the the tube to Bayswater, since that was the closest stop to my hotel.

The actual geography of London was irrelevant at that point, the important thing getting to the right stations. (Although obviously knowing the actual geography was useful for figuring out what station was closest to my destination. But even that wasn’t truly necessary, since the hotel had specified which station to go to, so even if I didn’t know London I could have found my way there.)

Once I got off at Bayswater, then literal geography became crucial to the final navigation to the hotel—which is why most subways have a geographically accurate map of the local area at the station while their route maps are simplified to the essentials.

So it’s not necessarily a case of non-literal maps being “wrong” as much as their being intended to satisfy different needs.

We do the same thing all the time when drawing maps in real life. If I draw a map of how to drive from my house in LA to Christina’s in Silicon Valley, it’s going be wildly “inaccurate”—the 400 miles between metropolitan regions will probably take up as much space as the details at end up about what to do once you get off the freeway. But I bet most people could follow it.

christina — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:28 GMT

the tube map is a popular exception i see.. but perhaps it is more a conceptual model than a map?

francois — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:28 GMT

Let me be the first to take issue with the 2nd Commandment, “Draw to scale”. Mr. McCormack says, “Maps that are not drawn to scale are not maps. They’re doodles best confined to toilet tissue. “

They’re not maps, true—they’re *diagrams* that can be every bit as useful as maps. Witness the London Underground “map” (its creator always referred to it as a “diagram”). It works because, for its users, geographic context is simply not important information. “Omit unnecessary information” is a Tuftean maxim, and sometimes that can include scale.

http://www.thetube.com/content/tubemap/

christina — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:27 GMT

Good point, adding the “foolish.” I really enjoyed this article, but I’m curious about when to deviate. Seems to me that Harry Beck’s choice to give up detail and accuracy in the London Underground Map makes it the useful document it is. it’s the same with site maps… including all the information makes them unreadable. The challenge is know what to include.

joe — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:50:27 GMT

I love the definition of a mpa I learned in the Army: “A map is a two-dimensional representation of the earth’s surface, as seen from above.”
While I know there are raised-relief maps, and while some may have examples that diverge, I find that, for me, this definition pretty much covers the map. :)

Your quotation “Consistency can be the hobgoblin of little minds” isn’t quite accurate. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds”—and that one word really changes the meaning. It’s the foolish, extraneous, insignificant devotion to consistency that becomes the burden on getting work done. Yet appropriate consistency isn’t a hobgoblin.