Submitted by Kara, who says:
I’ve attached the second edition of my “NM Transit Guide,” which I previously submitted one or two weeks back. The new version includes, along with some visual changes that I feel make it more aesthetically pleasing, a feature which as far as I can tell is a unique form of presenting information – I’ve never seen it on any other transit map. On the reverse side of the guide I have several tables of connections, showing where and when you can transfer from one route to another – and even accommodating trips involving multiple transfers! Planning a trip from, say, Taos to Jemez Springs, takes about fifteen minutes using prior knowledge and the available online schedules; with this guide I’ve managed to reduce that to one or two minutes. I’d love to know what you think of this method of presenting information, and of the guide in general. I feel this is a huge step up from my Park & Ride maps of last summer!
Transit Maps says:
From this and the drafts that Kara has previously submitted, I can see that a great deal of work and thought has gone into this, but I feel it can still be improved upon.
First thing: I think that the mid-grey background is hindering, not helping, this map. There’s a reason why most transit maps have a white or very light background: it helps to maximise contrast between elements. If you converted this map to greyscale in Photoshop (as I’ve done below), you’d find that the background is pretty close to 50% black, which means the most contrast it can ever have compared to another element is 50% – either all the way to black or all the way to white.
And as you can see, all the elements that aren’t pure black or white are compressed closer to the background’s mid-tone, resulting in low contrast throughout. Probably fine for people with good vision, but terrible for low lighting conditions or riders with poor eyesight. I personally also find the dark grey background a little oppressive and not at all “southwest desert” in tone. I like the colours in a map to evoke the place they represent, and the wonderful palettes available in a place like New Mexico should really be utilised to their fullest extent.
Next: hierachy. The Rail Runner commuter rail is represented by a thick yellow line, but with a white stroke through it that differentiates it from the Park and Ride Intercity Express Bus services, which are also thick and colour-coded by route. However, all the other bus services (which are also intercity and sometimes have frequencies that match or exceed the P&R buses) are relegated to thin, spindly lines that are only coloured to show which company they represent. As a result, line thickness doesn’t seem to indicate either mode or frequency, instead being a somewhat arbitrary divider of “important” vs. “non-important” routes. Frequency would seem to be a big issue for services in this part of the world, with some routes running as many as 13 times a day and one (the 360 between Taos and Tres Piedras) only running once a week on Wednesdays. Yet the map makes no attempt at all to show this. Having a bus that only runs on one particular day each week would seem to be a big deal. I’d be really interested to see this map reworked as a frequency map, much as the awesome new San Francisco Muni map is.
Clarity of information: I’d say that listing each route number next to its termini is imperative. At the moment, tracking down exactly where each route starts and ends is a little difficult, especially when they’re not listed in the legend to the right. Extra route numbers along the way to guide users through the more congested parts of the map are fine, but start and end points are extremely important! Pay attention where there could be potential confusion – I still don’t know which bus route(s) run between Eldorado and Santa Fe Place.
Overall, I’d like to see the shapes the “minor” bus routes take simplified a little more to match the lovely stylised, wide, sweeping curves that your “thick” routes take: they can seem a little cramped and fussy in a few places. Expanding the central/Santa Fe part of the map could help a bit here: there’s a lot going on in a very small space in this section of the map.
On the positive side, I’m really intrigued by your connections table and think it just needs a bit of spit and polish to really make it sing. I reckon you could just list the “Arriving” bus once on the left hand side if it connects with multiple other services on the right. Think of it as this bus connects with all of these buses. It would cut down on duplicated names and make things even quicker to find. Generally, text in tables should ranged left, rather than centred – it makes it easier for the eye to follow down a column if all the text starts in the same relative position. It also makes sorting and finding by word length easier. Time entries should be aligned on the colon, so that the hours and minutes columns line up properly. If you’re using OpenType fonts in InDesign, activate the “Tabular Lining” option for numerals in the Character palette, as this ensures that all numbers, regardless of character width, take up the same horizontal space, aligning perfectly in columns every time. Finally, I’d definitely see if you could do some testing of this table with some real commuters, just to see if it makes things as easy as you think it does. People react to information in very different ways!
Keep on refining and revising this with a clear objective in mind and this map will only get better!