Blog Index

Assignment 1

Literature Study
Fun use of perspective illustions

Individual information processing

Useful tips: color

Paper of analysis

Paper-Investigate the possibilities of manipulating visual variables

Assignment 2
Research
Inspirations from map design

useful theory points

Map of Delft, the tour circle and key spots

Mapping Information

Ideation

First ideas circle map

More ideas for the delft map

Formgiving idea

Idea development

Idea development 2

Idea development 3

Concept presentation

Presentation feedback

test and iteration 1

test and iteration 2

test and iteration 3

Final concept

Movie making

User Test

User test 1

User test 2

User test 3

Presentations

Concept Presentation

Final Presentation

Movie making

Use role play in the movie; real tourists are also involved.
The keywords are Delft, Map,Tourism

Final design

The K Route

The P Route

User test 3

This time around 7

participants were asked.

3 female (21, 25, 30)

4 male (25, 26, 26, 45)

The research questions are the same:

*Do the participants could recognize the differences between the two maps?

(If so,what kinds of the differences ?)

*Do the participants could understand the direction of the map?

(If so, what kinds of the aspects make them to think that?)

*What kinds of icon is the most clear and recognizable for the participants?

Results:

• All participants indicated that they recognize some differences between the two maps:
• 3 people saw that size arrangement of the circles are different
• 4 people noticed that different pictures are being faded, with 1 particular participant mentioned that in one map the museums are highlighted and in the other the shops are highlighted.
• 1 thinks that there's one circle missing in one of the maps
• 1 people said that the man next to the train station is suddenly much more attention demanding but couldn't explain why

• 5 out of 7 chose the direction from big to small as intended
• When asked why, most indicated that they thought its natural to go from big to small. Also the gap between the station and the smallest circle prevented them to go that way.
• One participant in particular was shown the P route, which should go left. She also chose left as the right direction, but she said that it seems to her that going clockwise is more fitting to the human nature.

• 2 people chose to follow from small to big
• When asked why, none could really explain. One said it seemd natural to 'go with the flow' to go from small and end up big.

Overal conclusion:

• The size differences are apparent to all, some clearly indicated that bigger circles gives the sense of importance.
• The difference in saturation/transparency are also noted. But not everyone realize what the meaning behind this difference is.
• The majority of the participants chose the right direction as intended, the gap between the station and the last picture is one crucial cue for them to not go to that direction. But 2 participants clearly went for the other direction, it seemed more natural to them, even though they did notice the size and transparancy difference.

User test 2

We tested our revised design to 8 participants. In 25th of March and 27 th of March.

- age/gender

: one female 21 years old, three female 26 years old, one female 29years old,

one male 26 years old, one male 30 years old, one male 31 years old, one male 37 years old

Research Questions:

*Do the participants could recognize the differences between the two maps?

(If so,what kinds of the differences ?)

*Do the participants could understand the direction of the map?

(If so, what kinds of the aspects make them to think that?)

*What kinds of icon is the most clear and recognizable for the participants?

Result:

* Six out of eight people thought there were same.

- they mentioned they firstly focused on the picture that is familiar with them, so they could not realize there was a difference between them.

* Two out of eight people thought there was " difference" between K route and P route.

- they recognized that the picture's location in the circle wa

s difference.

*Seven people thought that the right direction to follow from the route was starting from the biggest picture icon.

- they mentioned that the station sign could be used as a cue to realize it and the gap between the last picture and the station icon made them to think th

at was end point.

* Only one person thought that she had to follow from the smallest icon, she thought the biggest icon ( the station/museum ) seemed like the destination.

* About the icon of the shopping spot they preferred second one( 5 people choose ). They thought the icon itself should be clear and simple. The other three liked shopping bag with blue color. They thought they can feel delft blue from those. Our previous icon was failed to attract people's attention.

* One of them recommend us to change one icon, the two kinds of church were same which are new church. Thus, we should change this.

First user test

Last weekend, we did our first user test.

These are the 2 new posters we used:

route K

route P

We made the differences between the two more subtle, and got rid of the

map.

The direction is indicated by the spiral, a small size difference, and a change in gradient, and a slight overlap for the first and last stop with the train rails.

The choice for museums or shops is indicated by the first stop, and by a difference in transparency.

We did the test with 5 potential users (4 f, 1 m; age 45-65) from around Groningen.

We did not show the circles simultaneously, although that is what the assignment suggested, because the actual users would never see them at the same time, so it seemed irrelevant. Instead, we showed them right after each other for about 10 seconds. Some of them saw route P first, others route K.

After taking the posters away, we asked them to list the differences they had noticed.

Then, I showed them one of the posters, and asked them which direction they would follow, and if they would expect to visit mainly museums or shops, because the design should influence that decision, and why.

The test persons hardly noticed any differences between the two varieties: two of them saw no differences at all, two of them noticed the gap between the station and the last stop in route P (but not in route K!), and one of them (an artist) could list pretty much every single difference. So this part worked (but not for artists).

The direction on the circle was completely ignored. One of them chose "correctly": clockwise on route K for museums.

Other comments:

"Clockwise, always clockwise on a circle. Also, I want to see museums, and clockwise, a museum comes first." (route P)
"Counter-clockwise, I have a feeling I should go clockwise, but the pictures make it look more like a sightseeing tour in that direction, while the museums are on the left." (route P)

"Counter-clockwise, the museum seems more clearly visible there." (route K(!!!))

Conclusion 2: the difference should be much, much greater. We tried to make it subtle, according to the assignment and feedback, but subtlety clearly doesn't work. Especially when people have in mind what they want to do, museums or shopping, they appear to ignore the direction of the circle, and pay more attention to the pictures. What they want to do should come first, that's how they decide on the direction.

They all liked the design of the circle, although we didn't pay a lot of attention to that when we made these versions.

Presentation feedback

To consider for the development of our concepts:

- the distance between the station and the first "stop" should be small

- we don't need to show tourists the way, so we don't need to incorporate the map of Delft

- we can try to use cartoons or symbols instead of photos for the "stops", which may be clearer for people unfamiliar with Delft

- we have to decide which shops, museums, etc we are going to use in our design

Does anyone from the groups who have to comment on ours (or someone completely random of course!) any other suggestions?

First Concept Idea

Idea development 3

Idea development 2

Distinctions

size

layer

contrast

saturation

brightness

Mapping Information

List of cultural spots(orange, clockwise)

Prinsenhof Museum

Volkenkundig Museum Nusantara

Old church

Vermeer centre

New church

Delft heart

Stichting Museum Paul Tetar van Elven

DOK centre

Theatre

Military Museum

List of shopping spots(pink, clockwise)

Market

Beesten market

Shopping Centre De Veste

Zuidpoort

Vestplein

Breestraat

Idea development

Conclusion Idea Meeting

By showing each other our ideas, it became very clear which ones where successful: the ones for which everyone in the group immediately pointed out the desired direction.

The most successful elements were:

• Size
• Saturation / contrast
• Distance from circle (spiral)

And other potentially interesting elements were:

• Layers
• Orientation of the circle
• Action lines

For our next meeting, we will all combine these elements, and then choose one for our concept together.

Theory

Theory we have taken into account:

• Chapter 1

Layers of attention: bottom-up vs. top-down

What are the cognitive tasks and visual queries?

• Chapter 2

What should stand out? (PDF page 34)

Use different channels for multiple important things

• Chapter 3

Contours à same properties on page 34

Patterns (PDF page 62) and semantic patterns (PDF page 67)

• Chapter 4

Contrast and colour opponents à contrast for small spatial details

Unique hues

Semantics of colour

• Chapter 5

Depth cues in design (PDF page 98-99) à few!

• Chapter 7

Visual narrative à cognitive thread

Problem = Where to go? What to do?

Control attention

Short-term prediction

Formgiving idea

Inspired by the London tube map and Delft blue:

More ideas for the delft map

Use difference in distance from the circle to indicate prefered direction

Experienting with form transformations also give interesting results

Differences in depth perception by ulilizing size differences and cast shadow also infleunces the read direction. Gradual color change further enhance this effect.

In order to have pop-up effect, the other entire map is colored by static tone and important road is colored striking color like red, green and yellow.

Using different height gap, the user can recognize that there are two differentway to have a journey.

To make them have different direction to start their journey, different color gradation is used.

Using intuitive icon like time table (clock), the user can understand how they can follow the map to finish the whole journey.

First ideas circle map

Two layers of different saturations, and a slightly different orientation for the circle:

And variations in distance between the "stops".

"Pop-up" effect using size and colour. When the first step is clear, the audience's cognitive thread will follow the circle in the right direction.

Map of Delft, the tour circle and key spots

The boundary of the tour circle

Detailed mapping with spots of museums and shops

Inspirations for assignment 2

Several circle-shaped maps in use

Metro and underground maps designs around the world

London, UK

Berlin, Germany

Seoul, South Korea

Moscow, Russia

Shanghai, China

Fun use of perspective illustions

Illusion in Art

An artist starts with a two-dimensional surface; it may be a wall, a canvas, a board, paper or a pavement. By the use of paint or other media he must make the viewer enter his world and share his vision. But the actual world isn’t two-dimensional and the artist can’t create a three dimensional world on the surface. How do we get around this problem?

The answer is illusion - to represent the three dimensional world on the two dimensional surface the artist has to use systems of illusion that create the impression of space, of depth and of movement.

Linear perspective is a mathematical system for creating the illusion of space and distance on a flat surface. The system originated in Florence, Italy in the early 1400s. The artist and architect Brunelleschi demonstrated its principles, but another architect and writer, Leon Battista Alberti was first to write down rules of linear perspective for artists to follow. Interestingly, before that the system had been widely understood and applied, attempts to recreate realism in perspective in paintings were made, and not without errors.

Before the 14th Century little to no attempts were made to realistically depict the three dimensional world in art in the way in which we are now accustomed to seeing it.
The art of the Byzantine, Medieval and Gothic periods was rich and beautiful, but the images made no attempt to create the illusion of depth and space.

In this 15th century illustration from the Old French translation of William of Tyre's Histoire d'Outremer, there is clearly a general attempt to reduce the size of more distant elements, but unsystematically.

First Perspective - Fillipo Brunelleschi & Masaccio

The first known picture to make use of linear perspective was created by the Florentine architect Fillipo Brunelleschi (1377-1446). Painted in 1415, it depicted the Baptistery in Florence from the front gate of the unfinished cathedral. The linear perspective system projected the illusion of depth onto a two dimensional plane by use of ‘vanishing points’ to which all lines converged, at eye level, on the horizon. Soon after Brunelleshi’s painting, the concept caught on and many Italian artists started to use linear perspective in their paintings.
Masaccio (1401 – 1428) the first great painter of the early Renaissance period, was the first artist who demonstrated full command of the new rules of perspective; the figures in his paintings have volume and the buildings and landscapes realistically recede into the distance. Masaccio is seen now as being the initiator of the new style of Florentine Realism.

Use of perspective in modernday art

Fast forward to the present-day, artists and designers now use perspective as a form of illusion to create illustrations and artworks to trick viewers mind. Julian Beever, an artist who is probably best known for his optical illusion pavement drawings, like the ones below.

There are many more examples of artworks that demonstrate that perspective when used creatively can create powerful illusions that wows the audience. Depending on the task and goal of the designer, one shouldn't be afraid to explore different techniques and possibilities as means for visual communications