Heads Up: Using Cognitive Mapping to Develop a Baseline Description for Urban Visualization

Kevin Lynch’s work on urban legibility has taken on new importance as the delivery of information about cities has shifted largely to mobile computing devices. This study extends his work with the aim of quantifying the number and type of elements that constitute a competent cognitive map of a city. We conducted a user study of 109 student sketch maps of Chicago that test the frequency and nature of the elements identified by Lynch (path, edge, district, node and landmark), their interrelationship and the effect of gender, prior experience and scale.