Hacker News Reader

Comment by latexr | Hacker News Reader

> He added: "I also thought, 'Let's get the geography as well because, with maps, shapes and geography are important.

Funny. I remember watching a design documentary years ago where they made the exact opposite point: subway maps were trying to get the geography right but that became unwieldy and confusing, so the epiphany was that connections mattered more than the geography. That the way people were using the maps was to get from place A to place B and what mattered was quickly navigating the intersections.

View on HN

I'll never forget the day I thought I might change from one station to the next by walking, because they were right next to each other on the metro map – only to discover they were actually a couple of miles apart.

Or the time a relative visiting the city took the wrong train because when they needed to go north, the metro map showed northbound trains as eastbound in that area.

I think there is a compromise to be made. The best example of it I've found is the Stockholm metro map[1], which has straight, artificial lines but where the spacing and geometry between stations is still relatively faithful to reality. (Compare to what I assume is the real geography[2].)

[1]: http://www.bevenhall.se/tbana/tunnelb.jpg

[2]: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BzU070lCEAASgqr.jpg

That is a good map. It is also, crucially, so very much simpler than the London Underground one. At a certain point that stops being as feasible.

That’s because it only shows the metro. The map on SL’s (Stockholm’s transit agency’s) website is more complicated (but still good): https://sl.se/contentassets/7bf3767b47ed44ff98b06403c08eaa6b...

Part of the problem is balancing all the factors - a "star" metro like Stockholm is much easier to map than one that has actual rings and loops and similar.

You could perhaps have thin lines between "walkable" stations for the cognoscendi or similar.

On the other hand, there are two stations on the Berlin map which look quite far apart but are easily walkable in 5 minutes.

Bank and Monument are what spring to mind, though in both projections look pretty close.

It’s S Feuerbachstraße and U Walter Schreiber Platz.

The station labels are at about the same angle as the perceptual cut-off of my astigmatism, so neither the usually-horizontal nor usually-vertical pers of the letters are in focus. The spaciousness and directionality of the map are nice, but it’s much harder than the all-horizontal London map.

(TBF I live in London so I’m fairly comfortable with the Tube map)

The Tube map is roughly geographic. Amersham really is North West of London. Waterloo really is South of the river. It doesn't try to preserve the geographic integrity you'd need for say, a walking map but it also isn't willing to just put a station where it would fit best aesthetically despite being completely wrong for geography.

> where it would fit best aesthetically

It’s not an aesthetic decision, it’s a practical one juggling space constraints and clarity.

Where I live we have both: the main maps are non-geographic, and that allows them to be placed in several locations including the trains themselves. Geographic maps do exist, but take so much space they are only displayed at certain points in certain stations.

You can get either online.

It is useful for the geography to be at least close-to-correct, because step 1 of navigating a transit map is deciding if transit is the best way to go. The tube map is well known for having spots that make this deceptive, e.g. tourists would take the tube from Bank to Mansion House, although it would often be faster to walk.

> It is useful for the geography to be at least close-to-correct

I agree. I don’t think the point in the documentary was that geography in subway maps is irrelevant, just that it is secondary to connection clarity. When in doubt, prioritise for the latter.

Additionally, I remember they made this comment specifically about the London Underground map, it wasn’t a blanket statement for all subway maps.

> I remember watching a design documentary years ago

Was it Map Men? They mention not forcing the London tube map onto the geographical map. It has two parts:

1. "The Tube Map nearly looked very different" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTLCfl01zuE

2. "What went wrong with the Tube Map?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaEhvWXmLyk

> Was it Map Men?

It was not. I saw it maybe a decade ago and those are a year old. It was also not a YouTube documentary. I might give that one a watch, though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com