We’re preparing to road-test (or should that be ‘path test’?) a completed section of the map in the next fortnight with a group of local residents. This week has seen us take a reconnaissance walk around the trial area noting the sort of detail that rarely appears on maps and asking ourselves questions about what we do and don’t include. Out watchword is usability and thus too much detail – especially icons which we’re trying to avoid as much as possible – can clutter and make the map hard to read. We’ve far exceeded our original map data although online resources such as multimap are still proving useful for double-checking building layouts. There’s been much cross-referencing of road locations with getting-out-there-and-having-a-look being our definitive guide.
The test area can be seen below. We’re about to tweak the colour scheme and there’s yet to be labels added to some of the key buildings and a main street landmark or two. We’re also still trying to crack the dilemma of how to show the contours of the land without creating a birds eye view style map which we consider to be generally unhelpful to people navigating streets (unless you’re a bird).
I feel rather brave giving a glimpse of some work bang in the middle of experimenting and asking questions and where aesthetic considerations are on the back burner. But this is how the map (or a tiny part of it, at least) was looking and the end of last week – it’s changing considerably by the day at the moment as we hit problems, raise issues and change our minds about how to best display the information.
As you can see here, the colours, text, sizes, everything is all over the place. But I think it’s worth showing this to illustrate our priorities. If you’ve been following this blog you’ll see see some legible cities thinking happening here as we explore using thumbnail images of landmarks and what sort of perspective renders them most recognisable. You’ll also see priority given to pedestrian navigation as we work out exactly where every footpath starts, goes and ends, how wide it is, how suitable it is for those with limited mobility and whether it’s flat or on a gradient. That’s time-consuming work as there isn’t yet (to the best of our knowledge) a map of Scarborough that has this level of detail. How to effectively show gradients on a town centre map is proving to be one of the biggest challenges. But we like a challenge.
By the way, the reflection in the computer monitor is one of Scarborough’s iconic landmarks – the Spa footbridge – currently covered in scaffolding whilst it is being renovated.
The CHART Scarborough logo has its first outing as part of the centerspread in the November/December ‘Scarborough’s Future’ publication [download it here] and projected on the side of Woodend Creative Workspace as part of the Creative Coast treasure hunt.
Just had a meeting with Paul Grahamslaw from Lighthouse Media & PR to talk about increasing public awareness of CHART Scarborough and to decide how to get more local people on board through the local press. We’ve come up with a plan (always a good thing). If you want to find out more about how we work, drop me an email: dorcas@chartscarborough.com.
Had a meeting with our Arts Council Officer on Thursday to keep him updated about what’s happening with the project. Positive response to our plans….
