Exercise 4 - Iliana Shabatova

Map of China

Even though I am unable to read this map written in Chinese characters, there are a few well used visual strategies of conveying information which are easy to read.

The uniform connectedness strategy (Gestalt principles of perception) is used in several places. Firstly, the destinations on the top left corner are shown as a group with the kilometers to their left sides, all at equal distance from the cities. All city names and kilometer numbers are typed in the same colour and font. Secondly, on the bottom right of the colorful large map there is a legend, where the black characters describing the symbols all start from the same place and have the same distance to the symbols, even though the symbols are completely different from one another, there is a sense of grouping. Also there is a second legend, below the second map, to the right. This one creates a whole union, by the same starting point of the letters and distance between them, however using different colours for the last five symbols makes them be recognized even better as belonging to one another due to the uniform colour of each line (creating separate little unions inside the bigger one). Lastly, the left flap of the map used uniform connectedness through the text’s alignment and separation into different paragraphs with different colour headings.

Another small yet extremely important strategy is highlighting. This map will not be of much use if the viewer was unable to find their starting point, to which all these kilometers and cities are related. The starting point is identified by a large red circle with another red circle inside it, being easy enough for someone unable to understand the language to recognize (me). It almost looks like a button, waiting to be pressed. Another highlighting is used through font characteristics. Even though italics or underlining is not an option used for Chinese characters, the map titles are well placed with a reasonable font size, even the cities on the maps are easy to locate. Looking at the very left flap, the main heading of the paragraphs is red, blond and even the second line has a glowing effect. Lastly, colour highlighting is well used showing the roadways in intense red and blue hues, easy to detect and differentiate from all the different light-colored regions (right map). On the more topographic map, the road colours once again stand out, due to the black hairlines with an off-white (blue) background.

Overall this map appeals to me. I really like the milky green of the general background, psychologically creating a sense of natural calmness. I think that even though Chinese characters can get really messy to understand due to their spaces from one another, this map reduces such confusions by the well used uniform connectedness and highlighting universal strategies of conveying information. This map further connects to the Universal Principles of Design. Looking at the third principle – simple and intuitive use, this map eliminates a lot of unnecessary confusion making it even readable for foreign tourists, who can only use their common knowledge to understand obvious symbols (there is no loss of translation). The sixth principle of low physical effort is also used due to the well grouped layout of the map, its simple folding and one side use only. In terms of being useful to people with disabilities, the only category it lacks to cover is blind people, but then again blind people would probably have someone to drive them and take this trip around China with them!