CILIP in London
Sekforde Arms
12th January 2009
Legible London: A Wayfinding system for London
Speaker: Tim Fendley, Applied Information Group
An interesting talk by an “information designer” about a project designed to encourage people to walk more in London.
The key issue with navigating London at present, apart from its windy narrow streets and lack of constantly visible landmarks, is the lack of a cohesive signing system.
Fendley gave a number of examples of poor signing in the capital. Including a sign post just down the road from work which had four signs on it, all produced by different organisations, all pointing in different directions, and all mentioning the words “Kings Cross”. He also pointed to the lack of road signs (despite the law stating that there should be a sign on the corner of every road), a lack of consistency in the labelling of distances on signs (whether in minutes, miles, metres or kms), and the absence of numbers on shop faces.
The result of all these problems is that over half of the people navigating London base their journeys on the tube map. As most people are only prepared to walk ten minutes before they give up and get on the nearest train/bus it is of utmost importance to improve access to easily understandable directions if the Mayor is to achieve his aim to increase the number of people walking around London.
Not only would increased walking improve peoples’ health and decrease congestion in busy stations research also showed that many journeys are actually faster by foot then by public transport. This time saving is not currently properly presented by journey planner which only gives times for actually journeys, rather than including time spent waiting for transport to arrive or navigate your way through a station.
AIG did research in to what people use to find their way across London. Tools included shops, major Landmarks, and barriers such as the Thames or major roads.
Locals were asked to sketch areas they were familiar with This showed that very few people had any concept of which way was north, and also that people think in straight lines (so even when roads have clear bends people drew them as straight lines),
The way people travel was also divided along two sets of axis. Between novices and experts (i.e. how familiar you are with the area) and between stroller and strider (i.e. whether the journey is aimed at getting to a particular target, or if you’re pottering about with no specific aim.
Striders will have to go through a number of steps to get to their destination (e.g. a walk, then a tube, then a bus, then a walk.). To complete this journey they will use a number of resources a tube map, a bus station map and a google map for example. Often the problems come in the final walking section (the nature of public transport means that it does not get you from door to door). This project aims to make this whole procedure seamless, so all the information is provided in a uniform way.
Research also showed that people think in areas and villages . For example half of Covent Garden is in Camden, but it is seen as a single area by most people.
The system AIG came up with was a series of complimentary maps on miniliths and monoliths. The maps used included 3D images of important landmarks. They were fixed in the ground and orientated the way people were facing (rather than orientated due north) They also depicted a 15 minute walking circle showing how far you can get in that time.
Maps were put on key walking streets as well as in bus stops and tube stations.
Initial results showed that the system made peoples’ journeys 16% faster . and the number of people lost dropped dramatically.
