I came across this on YouTube the other day, and thought it was definitely worth sharing. It’s quite long (clocking in at well over an hour if you include the Q&A session at the end), but there’s a lot of great insight into both the history of the MBTA map, and of Ken’s personal journey designing the map over the years.
Of particular interest is how the whole redesign via a crowd-sourced contest a few years ago played out behind the scenes – Transit Maps gets a little name-check here as Ken notes my disdain for competitions like this.
Ken also once and for all definitively states why you can’t use an icon that represents the absence of accessibility at a station, as well as delving into a lot of other Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) design rules for maps that many designers may not be aware of. He definitely casts a lot of light on how these rules, stakeholders, and even politics affect the way the map is designed and produced – fascinating stuff! Give it a look if you can.
Source: YouTube
This was fun. Skipped the Q&A but the speaker *clearly* loves the topic *and* telling the story and he does it well. As someone who lived there in the 80s (just after the last cars made their way from Heath to Arborway, a segment I managed to ride) and during the time of the Orange Line relocation (rode the last inbound revenue Orange Line train, too!) I appreciated his talk about that era as well.
Nice!