Walking around London is being transformed by a wonderful piece of user-focused design (from Applied Information Group). The two features of Legible London that really work for us are firstly the orientation of the maps to the direction you are facing. This is different from the traditional orientation of having north at the top but makes so much more sense when walking.
The second element that seems to work so well for users is the indication of "time to walk". Time is the scale of the map not distance which reflects what the user actually needs to know.
The comparison with the map in a bus stop near our office with none of these features was stark - in fact on that map you couldn't even tell where you were!Labels: user needs, wayfinding
