Mental Map Prototype
In last week’s class I identified a few methods I might want to use for prototyping: role playing, paper maps, and narrative diaries. For my first attempt, I chose the latter.
I gathered a few friends over the weekend and asked them to recite for me a trip they took recently. This could be a commute, an excursion at lunchtime, or a date. It didn’t really matter where or why they went; I was interested in their process of taking the trip. To the best of their ability, I asked for a recitation that was as detailed as possible (so as to determine what was memorable and what was not).
It is important to note that I didn’t have any actual maps in front of my friends; this exercise was important to see how their mental map behaved.
What emerged was—to borrow the semantics of Kevin Lynch—a description of:
- Paths. Specific streets, subway lines
- Districts. An identification of one being in a neighborhood
- Modes of transit. Walking, bicycling
- Nodes. Points of interest, landmarks
The Mental Map
A person’s self-reported mental map is therefore a collection of urban components utilized in their travels.
To use one friend’s example, the journey started down one street, taking a left turn before arriving at the destination. In this case the mental map formed—if overlaid onto a traditional map projection—a rough L-shape. The only paths present were the two streets walked down, and the nodes were the representations of the origin, the destination, and the intersection where the turn took place. The parts of the city tangent to these components are part of the periphery, but quickly fade out of view in the mental map.
Since my friends were all in the same room as they recited their trips, and the environment was relaxed, others felt comfortable enough to jump in and interrupt with their own anecdotes and commentary. The friend would then respond to this addition with their own opinions, and layers of information would start to build. Even still, to me acting as an audience, I was able to determine to a certain extent what information belonged to whom.
Next Steps
This weeks experiment was an attempt to better understand the mental model of a journey. In the next week I plan to perform a similar exercise on a few of the other design directions I have been thinking about:
The Passage of Time
Cities and environments change over time. Think of a fixed point in geography as a time-lapse video. Is there a “best time” for this point in the context of a specific activity?
Turf
There is a place you inhabit. you know the boundaries, so to speak, of your ‘home turf’. It’s not a simple radius, but probably follows the paths of the area. How do you know when you are out of your turf, and on someone else’s? Are those lines blurry or well-defined?
Map Authors
If every map has an agenda, who is driving that agenda? these are the people & authorities who provide maps. How are these roles changing?
