ePrints

Maps Telling Stories?

Lookup NU author(s): Dr David Fairbairn

Downloads

• Accepted version [.pdf]

Licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).

Abstract

Maps are good at representing geographic space, but texts have a stronger affordance of telling a story than maps. Telling stories is, however, important to make information more personal and to arrest the map user's attention. This paper contrasts the map and the text media in order to understand why texts are good at telling a story but conventional maps are not. We demonstrate that, by a modification of maps, appropriate structural features of the text media can be transferred to maps, which makes them more suitable for telling stories. This new concept for map design can lead to new interaction possibilities and provide insights into how maps can be used more effectively.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Mocnik FB, Fairbairn D

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: The Cartographic Journal

Year: 2018

Volume: 55

Issue: 1

Pages: 36-57

Online publication date: 10/04/2017

Acceptance date: 03/04/2017

Date deposited: 06/02/2018

ISSN (print): 0008-7041

ISSN (electronic): 1743-2774

Publisher: Taylor and Francis

URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/00087041.2017.1304498

DOI: 10.1080/00087041.2017.1304498

Altmetrics

Share