Thursday 31 January 2013

Most Visitors To London Will Have Looked,

if not used the London Underground railway,


but to receive maximum usage a map was needed, like this one, but it was not quite the answer as many people found it difficult to follow, as more stations were added it became even more complicated to understand, 


then along came engineering draftsman Harry Beck who in 1931 based the map upon an electrical circuit by straightening lines and making the map not geographically accurate he designed the one we are all so familiar with today,

but here is another idea, Dr Max Roberts has issued a redesign of the map based on concentric circles, partly inspired by the orbital London Overground, the London Underground map expert, who has also published a curvy version of the Tube map, said the official map was becoming too cluttered, in a posting on the Going Underground blog, he wrote: ‘grounding a map in familiar shapes such as circles can make it easy to comprehend, however, it is also possible to push a design priority too far, as the old saying goes, be careful of what you might desire, in case you get it.’


Dr Roberts added however that he did not expect the map to be adopted any time soon, ‘overall though, I don’t think I will be sending this one to Transport for London for comments, no great advances in usability here, but it was fun to make it,’ he said, so is it better being a square or should we be going round in circles?

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