Heads Up: Using Cognitive Mapping to Develop a Baseline Description for Urban Visualization Submission #513

Mapping interfaces have become increasingly important, par-ticularly with the spread of mobile devices (GPS, cell phones). While a plethora of data is available, there is little quantita-tive information about how to prioritize the display. Build-ing on the work of geographers, urban designers and cogni-tive scientists focused on cognitive maps, we propose three elements for urban visualization; segments, landmarks and neighborhoods. We then conducted a user study of 55 stu-dents ’ sketch maps of Chicago that tests the frequency of these three elements, their interrelationship and the effect of gender, age, experience and scale. We conclude that all three types of elements are used, that competent cognitive maps involve relatively small numbers of elements (17 +/-12), that the number of landmarks and neighborhoods are negatively related to the number of segments, that scale may influence the relative proportion of elements and that gender and age are worth considering in customizing interfaces