THE CONCEPTS
The two concepts below are the concepts that were input for the test.
'Route P': the Shopping route
'Route K': the Culture route
As you can see we added:
- the perfect circle in perspective
- a texture on the ground which shows a texture gradient (a variable for perspective)
- different colour intensities (e.g. the brighter white and grey buildings)
- different sizes in shadows
- different sizes in buildings
- a different orientation of the starting point (Delft railway station)
- different directions of the canals inside the circle.
THE TEST
The user test has been conducted in Rotterdam near Central Station.
Unfortunately none of the respondents wanted to be recorded on camera. We experienced that people were not very willing to cooperate with the test. Maybe because it was near the railway station and they were in a hurry or maybe because they were just not much into cooperating with such a test, with people they did not know. (Bob even almost got subscribed to an anti animal testing organisation and a newspaper he did not want.) However, some respondents were found who were willing to participate in the research. They were mostly younger people, commuters probably, aged between 20 and 30.
We asked the people if they saw differences between both maps after seeing the maps for a very short period of time. Almost everyone saw a difference, so probably the differences were not as subtle as we thought they were. After that the respondents were shown one of the two maps and were asked which way they would walk seeing this map. Unfortunately, many of the respondents were not really influenced by our designs to walk in the direction we wanted them to walk. The results were as follows:
As can be seen from the results most respondents tended to walk in the opposite direction of the direction we tried to guide them. So it would be nice to know what aspect made them walk in that direction, because when switching this aspect the repondents would maybe walk in the "right" direction. We asked the respondents about their experience and remarks and they told us that they tended to move towards crowded places, misread the shadows and were not really directed by our visual variables, but just wanted to go right in both posters. And last, the respondents would have liked it to have more colour in the maps. Currently they think the maps are too monotone.
With these remarks in mind, the route continues...
Unfortunately none of the respondents wanted to be recorded on camera. We experienced that people were not very willing to cooperate with the test. Maybe because it was near the railway station and they were in a hurry or maybe because they were just not much into cooperating with such a test, with people they did not know. (Bob even almost got subscribed to an anti animal testing organisation and a newspaper he did not want.) However, some respondents were found who were willing to participate in the research. They were mostly younger people, commuters probably, aged between 20 and 30.
We asked the people if they saw differences between both maps after seeing the maps for a very short period of time. Almost everyone saw a difference, so probably the differences were not as subtle as we thought they were. After that the respondents were shown one of the two maps and were asked which way they would walk seeing this map. Unfortunately, many of the respondents were not really influenced by our designs to walk in the direction we wanted them to walk. The results were as follows:
As can be seen from the results most respondents tended to walk in the opposite direction of the direction we tried to guide them. So it would be nice to know what aspect made them walk in that direction, because when switching this aspect the repondents would maybe walk in the "right" direction. We asked the respondents about their experience and remarks and they told us that they tended to move towards crowded places, misread the shadows and were not really directed by our visual variables, but just wanted to go right in both posters. And last, the respondents would have liked it to have more colour in the maps. Currently they think the maps are too monotone.
With these remarks in mind, the route continues...
