Research shows how 'navigational hazards' in metro maps confuse travelers by Staff Writers Kent UK (SPX) May 17, 2018
Peter B. Lloyd, a PhD student in the School of Computing, working alongside Dr Peter Rodgers in the same department, and Dr Maxwell J. Roberts, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Essex, is carrying out a series of studies on the New York City subway map. This is sometimes ranked as the most complex metro map in the world, but the results are expected to be applicable to other cities. The researchers recruited 300 participants online to use an on-screen map to plan a number of journeys between randomly selected pairs of stations. Each journey contained one or more 'navigational hazard' such as where one route switched places with another route, merged with another route or trunk, or passed under another trunk. The initial aim of the study was to determine the effect of commonly used colour-coding schemes on the usability of the map as measured by accuracy and speed of navigation. The three colour-coding schemes studied were: 'route colouring' where each end-to-end route is coloured distinctly; 'trunk colouring' where routes are coloured according to the trunks they run along; and the intermediate 'shade colouring' (shown below). Participants' performance when navigating from one station to another was determined by recording how many mistakes they made and how long they took to complete each task. Their results are consistent with what the researchers predicted: in planning simple journeys with at most one change, the route-coloured map scored the highest usability, while in planning complex journeys with multiple changes, the trunk-coloured map scored the highest usability. A surprising outcome from the study is the large effect on usability of navigational hazards - specific local features in the map that are frequently misread by passengers. The researchers found that some navigational hazards affect the usability score more than the choice of colour-coding scheme does and that a few specific navigational hazards reverse the general trend of the effect of colour coding. For example, on routes with slip hazards - where two routes converge as one - route colouring remained the fastest and most accurate means of identifying the correct route. But on routes with jump hazards - where riders have to move from one branch line to another - it was the least effective and trunk colouring was more effective. The researchers are now carrying out further analyses of the dataset to characterise navigational hazards with a view to developing software for automated detection and correction of those hazards. The paper, Metro Map Colour-Coding: Effect on Usability in Route Tracing, is being presented at the conference Diagrams2018 in Edinburgh on June 18-22 and presented at the Transit Mapping Symposium, a meeting of academics and industry representatives, on 28-29 June in Montreal, Canada.
Swift improves position accuracy and availability for precision farm and shipping customers San Francisco CA (SPX) May 15, 2018 Swift Navigation, a San Francisco-based tech firm that is building centimeter-accurate GPS technology to power a world of autonomous vehicles, has announced the latest firmware upgrade to its flagship product Piksi Multi GNSS Module. This marks the fifth major point release to Piksi Multi and is available free of charge to Swift customers. The firmware release also enhances Duro, the ruggedized version of the Piksi Multi receiver housed in a military-grade, weatherproof enclosure designed specific ... read more
|
|
The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us. |