Worcester Map, Part 2: The Map

Rough Draft

     After settling on a set of locations, Jack and I began the process of making the map. We used Google Maps as our source of both the raw map were were modifying and the specific walking paths we selected. All paths included were the most direct route from the seal in the center of the Quad to the addresses of the locations.
     I ending up doing most of the graphical work on the image components of the map. However, I made sure to check in with Jack and ask for his feedback on the main visual details, like getting his suggestions and approval on color and icon choices. I also deliberately didn't add text or marker icons to the map image itself, instead opting to have Jack and I add these in using Google Slides so it could be done more collaboratively and small tweaks could be made more efficiently.

This was the rough draft version of our map:

     Each location is marked with an icon that has a relevant symbol on it (all of which I drew). Restaurants have a fork and knife to indicate eating, Institute Park has a tree since that represents nature and green space (it had originally been a sun, but I changed it to a tree when Jack suggested it), Price Chopper has a grocery cart since it's a grocery store, Bonardi's Formalwear has a tuxedo, and the Worcester Art Museum (WAM) has a fancy, artistic A (I will readily admit that that was the weakest of the icons). The symbols themselves are also in WPI school colors to help make the map more relevant to students.
     Furthermore, the path colors were chosen to represent the location (if possible), or at least stand out against each other. Institute Park was given a green path since that color is directly associated with nature, Price Chopper was given a red-magenta color to reference the combination of red and blue (with red dominant) in its logo, and Bonardi's was given a very dark bluish-purple to reference both the serious, formal nature of its merchandise and common suit colors like black and blue.
     There are also several ways we made the map particularly target WPI students. We used text (in WPI colors) to explain why these places would be useful to students. We also used the Quad as the starting point for all of the paths, and marked it using an icon of Gompei's head (I had considered using a graphic of the school seal, but that is less recognizable as WPI, especially at the small scale it would appear. The campus of WPI is tinted red to distinguish it from the surrounding city. I also altered the colors from the original google map to make the green spaces appear reddish to further establish the WPI-themed color scheme of the map.

Feedback

     In lecture on Monday, we had an opportunity to get feedback on our maps from the class and from Professor deWinter. The results of the peer feedback is summarized below:

Pros:

• Our selection of locations covers a wide range
• The map would be useful to have as a freshman
• Our icons our good and self-explanatory (with the exception of the WAM one)
• The highlighting of campus boundaries is good.

Cons/Suggestions:

• The map should include distances or approximate travel times for each path.
• The map should emphasize that these places are in walking distance.
• The WAM icon would make more sense as a brush, a palette, or maybe even a comedy and tragedy mask. A fancy A doesn't clearly convey the idea of art.
• Our selection of places is strangely limited.
• Our text could be scaled down.
• Campus takes up too much of the map with the current zoom/scope.
• Highland Street is too cluttered and has overlapping icons.

     Professor deWinter also expressed several concerns of her own, most prominently that our map really isn't all that different from just a normal google map. All of the places shown are fairly well-known or easy to find. As such, it fails to re-imagine the space portrayed, the focus of the assignment. To remedy this, she suggested that Jack and I find locations that actual students recommend or wish they had known about freshman year. This would hopefully give the map more of a unique spin, and maybe even incorporate some hidden gems people would otherwise skip over or simply never notice. She also noted that the specific routes we were recommending were found purely by a computer, and thus might not be ideal for actually walking.
     While it would have been nice to get recommended routes from actual people, due to the limited time we had available and our own inexperience exploring Worcester this was not really possible. However, deWinter's bigger point of feedback was one that was well withing our powers to address. It just so happened that Jack and I were already in a room almost completely full of upperclassmen (we are two of the only three freshmen in the entire class), so we could very easily go ask people what places they would have liked to have known about when they were freshmen. And so, just a matter of minutes later, we had a proper list! The new places within walking distance of campus that people recommended we add were:

• The Fix (a burger place)
• Lucky's Cafe
• Escape Games (an escape room)
• The Bean Counter (a coffee shop and bakery)
• Thai Time
• Dragon Dynasty
• Boomers (a pizza and sandwich shop)
• Elm Park 
• Bancroft Tower (another park)

Final Draft

     With the feedback we'd received in mind, we revised our map. This was the result:

The main changes made were as follows:

• The suggested locations within the scope of the map were added.
• Time estimates for each route are now placed alongside them.
• The title and description text were updated to emphasize the fact that these locations are recommended by actual students.
• The Highland Street restaurants were condensed to a numbered list represented by a single icon to reduce clutter.
• A new icon was added with the inclusion of the Escape Games escape room. I had originally been considering doing a key or an opening door, but Jack's suggestion of a puzzle piece was much clearer for the general type of activity.
• The WAM icon was revised. It is now a simple painting, which was Jack's favorite of the options I had come up with (shown below).

• The freshman dorms on the WPI campus are outlined, helping provide spatial reference and relating the map more to freshmen.
• Faint boxes are placed behind the text to make it more legible.
• The paths are outlined in white to help visually separate them.

References

[WPI Logo with Gompei]. (n.d.). Retrieved December 13, 2017, from 

     https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/912680022716141568/CMxu3qjG.jpg