37signals.com, a Chicago-based Web software firm, has an interesting posting on an alternate New York City Subway Map created by Eddie Jabbour, a New York-based designer. The map has been kicking around for years, but the 37signals blog has some interesting observations on it.
Jabbour’s map looks like a winner. He wisely recognizes that usability is more important than geographic accuracy here. Subway map readers want to know how to get from A to B a lot more than they want to know the exact curve of the tracks along the way. Sometimes truth is less important than knowledge.
It's pretty cool, no?
-- Michael Clancy
Comments (4)
Most subway riders complete part of their journey on foot -- who wants a map that has absolutely no relation to the actual city streets?
Not that the current map is perfect in this regard, but Jabbour's map is far worse.
I could see using it in *some* situations, but never as a replacement for the standard map in stations, train cars, etc.
They tried this once before and it resulted in one of the worst maps ever created.The map must have a relation to the streets above.
Jabbour's map is the way the old maps were...clean, neat, easy to read, and curving lines with no street grid underlay doesn't help walkers in any appreciable way.
The current map doesn't have that much to with geography, either. And subway riders need to know how to get from one station to another - that's the sole purpose of a subway map.