Wayfinding Readings

To assist us in further representing and analyzing our situation, each of the members of the group completed some reading.  Here are the summaries of the clips I read from Lynch and Verplank.

Lynch – The Image of the City

·         Five elements of a city:  paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks

·         Paths – how people move through the city.  Streets, walkways, railroads, etc.

·         Edges – boundaries between two places, linear breaks in continuity.   Shores, walls, etc.

·         Districts – sections of a city that an individual enters “inside of”.  Identifiable from the outside as well as the inside.

·         Nodes – cores of a district, junctions and/or concentrations of paths.  Crossing or convergence of paths, enclosed square, street-corner hangout, etc.

·         Landmarks – external type of point-reference.  Building, sign, store, mountain, etc.

·         Elements constantly overlap and some are multi-purpose

·         Users create a mental image of the city.  The better designed the city is, the better image quality users have and the easier it is to navigate.

·         Environment should be organized to satisfy the individuals who inhabit it; different cultures have different needs.

Verplank – How do you KNOW?

·         Path knowledge – step by step instructions expected by the user

·         Map knowledge – Lynch’s belief of mental maps, “imageability”

·         Imageable cities have paths along edges, and/or landmarks at nodes to be used for navigation.

·         Applies Lynch’s ideals to modern technology, including a computer mouse, web pages, and a music synthesizer keyboard.