Comparing the Effects of Illustration Styles on the Functionality of Tourist Maps

Tourist maps come in various forms, with some for instance aiming to help their users in finding their way in a foreign environment, some aiming to depict special characteristics of a certain place, and yet others trying to provide information about different tourist services, activities and experiences. Many tourist maps utilise illustrations to support users with these tasks. Despite their widespread use, however, currently there are no specific guidelines for the use of different types of illustrations for creating functional tourist maps. In this paper, we describe a user study which we have conducted to compare different illustration styles used in tourist maps. The study, which was in the form of an online survey, measured the time taken by the users to complete the map-based study tasks, the accuracy of users’ responses, and their subjective difficulty ratings of the study tasks, as well as their preferences for differently illustrated maps. The results of the study suggest that different illustration styles do not affect the functionality of tourist maps significantly. However, in some cases, the illustration style used may have a notable effect on the map user’s ability to acquire the necessary information. Furthermore, in terms of their style, some illustrations can be used to convey cultural and other types of information in tourist maps, which are not necessarily related to their primary functions.