Comprehending spatial information: The relative efficiency of different methods of presenting information about bus routes.

Abstract

The study examined the relationship between mode of presentation and ease of comprehension for information about bus routes. The information was presented to subjects in one of the following four ways: (a) as a conventional road map, (b) as a schematic map, (c) as a set of lists of bus stops in sequential order, and (d) as a set of lists of bus stops in alphabetical order. Subjects were given pairs of location names and had to work out which buses were required to get from the first to the second location in each pair. Overall times to solution were faster for the maps than for the lists, with the schematic map being clearly the best form of representation for this task. Complexity (i.e., number of buses required to solve a problem) did not affect performance with the maps but did with the lists, especially the alphabetical lists. (Author)