Video

Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GijKQSVL-NE

Enjoy

Update

Well, after a very busy week, Team Y are back on schedule. As you may have noticed, we only have two members in our group doing the work of four people! But fortunately we are back on track and will post the results of our concept test shortly.

The designs we tested were:

Map K

and

We made sure to use lots of "rich" sketches of Delft to reflect its artistic history and prominance as an area of cultural richness. We think the sketchiness, shows the significance of each area without dominating over other areas. Symbols are far more quickly recognised (Colin Ware, Chapter 7). Therefore, we kept their use to a minimum in order to negate 'museum' or 'shopping' bias. In doing so, we feel the sketches represent the nature and offerings of Delft much more subtly being more in line with the assignment.

The underlying theory, however, uses areas of contrast to help the viewer choose their direction. The differences between the images are subtle, but the eye is drawn to the area of highest contrast.

Testing
Well, the results were very promising, only 2 out of 23 participants noticed the difference. Even after the user test and being shown the difference, they still found it hard to spot. So we conclude that the difference is very subtle... but... did it work?....

Yes! 7 out of 11 participants chose the right direction for route P and 8 out of 12 picked the right direction for route K. So there was a significant shift in the way people moved round the circle!

Can i get a rewind!

Ok.. The presentation highlighted a few core issues in our design, namely:

The route should not be a route but instead 'represent' a route
It should be provide initial direction but should not 'direct' people precisely
It should be abstracted and not merely a map of Delft
It must be a perfect circle. Not an oval or other shape
The circle itself can not indicate direction in any manner
The 'map' should be more of a graphical representation of the richness of Delft

So.. Team Y is current busy completely overhauling our design. However, we must add, all is not lost, as we learnt a lot from our mistakes and now have a solid concept of the direction in which we are heading. We shall post some new concepts soon!

Subtle Contrast

Here is our concept for presentation on Tuesday the 15th March.

As we understand the assignment, the most minimal change with the maximum effect is the best design. As a result, we have chosen to present our concept that makes use of gradients to manipulate channel properties.

For this concept we utilized the information found in Chapter 4 (Color) of Colin Ware's book. Particularly the section on contrast.

To do this, the gradient and the subsequent path that is subtracted from the gradient, provides a high level of contrast on either the shopping or cultural route. The result is that the eye is attracted most to the area of highest contrast and that it follows this line as the contrast decreases. This exploits the eyes preference for finding areas where there are large differences in contrast.

This simple gradient is barely noticeable at first glance, however, provides a significant emphasis on either route.

In the image above we can see that the eye is lead into following the shopping route.

However, in this image, the eye is lead towards the top of the image, leading the viewer towards the cultural route.

Overall, we believe that this design is an effective way to communicate direction, whilst still keeping the most important visual information (the actual map) intact. We decided not to make the map too abstract as doing so would cause confusion to any user who has a real map of the area. To further develop this concept we aim to create mental markers, to help the viewer to translate what they see in the map to the real map they may be holding. This will be our next stage of research.

Gradients to lead the eye

The gradient encourages the eye to look for areas of higher contrast and to find patterns that identify edges clearly.

Or how about using chromatic contrast to emphasize the red and exploit the eyes tendency to look for areas of high contrast.

Or some blur, to encourage the eye to look for the sharpest area

In this case, the circle itself is very straightforward, however, the use of curvature in the map markers subtly indicates a sense of direction and movement.

Motion

Here we experiment with motion and pattern recognition. The pattern until the start of the cirle hopefully will be followed...