Cartography Week 1: Map Critique

For this week's lab, we selected one well-designed map and one poorly designed map and evaluated them based on given criteria and Edward Tufte's six map design commandments.

The well-designed map I chose is an overview of the bus system in Trondheim, Norway.

In my opinion, this map does a good, but not perfect, job of fulfilling its purpose of informing riders about the Trondheim bus system. It meets Tufte’s 4th commandment, “Minimize map crap,” by only labeling important bus stops and including only information necessary to navigate the overall system of buses (and one tram) in Trondheim. Its minimalist design prevents the many routes and colors from becoming overly chaotic, and less important information, such as summer service changes and neighborhood names, are in smaller text.

It meets Tufte’s 5th commandment, “Map layout matters,” by using a very simple layout divided into three rectangles: the main map, the inset, and the explanatory graphic for the inset. Less important map elements are arranged in logical places in empty space in the main map.

This map also does a good job of meeting Tufte’s 3rd commandment, “Effectively label maps.” The lines representing each route are all labeled with their number and a unique color (aside from 1, 2, and 3, which are all dark gray) at the route’s endpoints and multiple places along the route. I like the creative solution of an inset map with a graphic of the routes that serve each stop in the city center instead of a confusing mess of routes with their own labels and colors.



I chose this map because I find it very aesthetically pleasing. It is very minimalist in its basemap, (which is just white representing land and blue representing water), its layout (it has no borders and fills the space with its three rectangles (main map, inset, and inset graphic)), and the amount of information it includes. However, the choice to make almost every route a different color makes it very fun and colorful. The land/water polygons and route lines are geometric and simple, using mostly 90 and 45 degree angles, but they have rounded edges, which gives a softer effect. The sans serif font used is also clean and simple and balances an orderly, rigid shape with soft edges. My few issues with this map are the lack of an English title, the unexplained difference in symbology between transfer points and regular bus stops, the fact that the 1, 2, and 3 bus routes are all the same color, and the unknown reasoning for which stops to mark and label. However, I love the map’s soft geometry and its clean, modern, and colorful design.

This map on its own is probably not enough to tell you how to get from one point to another in Trondheim. However, it is meant to be used in conjunction with the route timetables posted at bus stops and/or the mobile app, and it is very helpful for visualizing the overall system, so it fulfills its substantive objective.

For my poorly designed map, I chose this map of hotels in Barcelona.



This map is poorly designed because it would not be useful enough to help tourists easily find the mapped hotels in Barcelona. In my opinion, the most important flaw is that only one main street is drawn and labeled. The mapmaker drew the beginnings of streets leading off from the Ramblas, but did not continue or label them, which would make it difficult to know how to get to the hotels on the map. Another glaring issue is the lack of a title, informative text, a legend, or other supporting elements that would contextualize the map itself and make it easier to understand. These two omissions violate Tufte’s 3rd commandment, “Effectively label maps.” Finally, the design is disorderly, crowded, and informal, with inexpertly hand-drawn lines and hard-to-read handwriting, and map elements are crowded into the edges of the map, making it visually confusing. This violates Tufte’s 5th commandment, “Map layout matters.”

To fix this, I would put the map in a frame, place the scale bar, north arrow, legend, and title around it, and use a computer software to create all the lines, labels, and map elements. Overall, the map’s design violates the 6th commandment, “Evaluate your map.” If the mapmaker had considered how easy it would be for someone unfamiliar with the area to use this map to find hotels, they might have realized that they needed to include more information and display it more clearly.