Mapping the reality of the world
How early maps and our own mental maps can shape the design of our physical and digital worlds.
We use cartography to guide us daily. We see maps everywhere in current technology, whether in our phone, car dashboard, or embedded in a website. But, the map itself looks a lot like it did back when it was made out of paper. Cartography, or map-making, literally translates to paper or papyrus. Sure, our digital versions are more accurate. You’re also featured as a friendly blue dot and buildings can appear three-dimensional in certain places. But really, the innovation in mapping has been in shifting to a much more mobile, accessible medium (a screen instead of paper) — not in actually being more intuitive or bettering how we experience the physical world. To look at what mapping could be, let’s look at what it was:
The evolution of maps
Throughout the early eras of mapping, depictions of the physical world were often shaped by the purpose and intended use of the mapmaker. Many were elaborate, layered in nuanced information about culture and context, and even considered works of art.
- Ancient Greeks developed some of the earliest maps in existence. Their primary goal was to study the earth. Their maps theorized our planet to be a sphere, estimated its circumference and examined climactic patterns. These cartographers were the first to realize plotting the physical world can influence society and the human condition.
- The Roman Empire used map-making for more practical purposes: military and administrative needs. They mapped things like roads, boundary lines and physical features to be used for managing the Empire and expanding it into more territory. This era’s maps used a system of latitude and longitude and were key in the expansion of the Roman Empire.
- The Middle Ages brought about a new era of world maps as merchant and trade routes drew people and interests further from home. Meridians, parallels and precision in measurements all advanced cartography during this time period.
- In the 16th century, priorities of those in power were colonization of new parts of the world, commercial expansion, and military superiority. With the realization that map accuracy directly correlated with a country’s capacity to control more of the world, cartographers became extremely influential in society. The motives behind maps in this era are most evident in the creation of the Mercator Map, which sacrificed accuracy in shapes at the poles in order to depict the lines of the earth as “straight.” This proved to be an invaluable tool for navigating the vast oceans to the new world.
- In the 19th century, the emerging middle class and access to transportation brought about leisure travel. The decorated, treasured maps of previous eras gave way to highly-functional, portable maps.
All these ventures in cartography have performed the job of their time. They were reinvented and reimagined as the scene changed and the motives advanced.
So what’s our thing? Our era is marked by the dawn of the internet and smartphone and the introduction of immersive digital worlds to interact with. The agenda for maps has again changed. Yet, we’re still thinking about and using the flat travel maps of the 19th-century.
I think that the humanized, purposeful maps of the past will come back into view when looking to what the next era of mapping holds. However, rather than interpretations of the mapmaker, it should be reflective of the individual using it. To do so, maps will need to mirror how we naturally process the physical world far more than they currently do.
So, how do we process the world around us anyway?
Whether it’s a megacity or a hiking trail, all of our surroundings have their own complex systems that affect how we orient, remember and understand their forms. How we actually process these different systems at a high-level is the same: by building a cognitive map. Cognitive maps are just mental representations of physical locations. It’s how our brain creates a sense of place. People (and most animals) use these mental models to navigate and remember important features of the environment.
“The image of the world around us, which we carry in our head, is just a model. Nobody in his head imagines all the world, government or country. He has only selected concepts, and relationships between them, and uses those to represent the real system” — Jay Wright Forrester, 1971
The actual planning and layout of a system affects how quickly and accurately we build our mental models. Organizations like the grid in Manhattan are easy for the brain to process and remember, while more organic systems can produce unique mental models that vary from person-to-person and take longer to collect. Also, how you experience a place greatly affects how your cognitive map forms and vice versa. For example, you may have noticed that the cities or neighborhoods you’ve explored on foot have a different representation in your head than the ones you’ve explored by car or even public transportation.
What makes up our mental maps?
Kevin Lynch, an urban planner, performed a five-year study in Boston and a few other cities in 1960 looking to answer exactly that. I’ve lived in Boston and can attest to it being a particularly disorienting city. Due to its streets originally being cow paths and massive landfill expansion, everything curves around and interlocks in seemingly nonsensical ways. So basically, it’s a great place to test out what a mental map looks like (spoiler: lots of blank spaces and obscurity). What Lynch discovered through surveys and interviews is that people perceive their surroundings in predictable and consistent ways. He states that mental maps are all made up of the same five elements:
- Paths — routes along which people move throughout the city (think major streets or walkways)
- Edges — boundaries and breaks in continuity (think waterfronts)
- Nodes — focal points like squares and junctions (think Union Square)
- Districts — areas characterized by common characteristics (building heights, styles, etc.)
- Landmarks — an easily identifyable physical object in the urban landscape (you know what a landmark is)
Lynch refers to the extent to which the city can be processed through this taxonomy as its legibility or “imageability.” The higher the imageability the more effectively people can engage in wayfinding and the more secure they feel in the environment. Lynch claims that a “distinctive and legible environment not only offers security but also heightens the potential depth and intensity of human experience.”
The next era of maps: where technology and mental maps meet
By building maps that take imageability into account, more accurately align with reality and are increasingly relative to the person using it, we can move beyond today’s static 19th-century travel maps. According to Lynch, by humanizing mapping in this way, we can potentially sharpen everyone’s cognitive maps and heighten the urban experience without moving a brick.
Moreover, what we know and have learned from Lynch and mental maps can power the next phase of layering our physical world with AR and building new ones in VR. Without concern for how we perceive surroundings, Augmented Reality can very easily worsen our orientation and the imageability of cities. With content overload, we’re stripped of the hierarchies needed to build mental maps. If we instead layer information that builds and supports legibility, we can provide an even deeper sense of enjoyment and memory of physical places.
We can also create virtual realities that are still intuitive and replicate a secure ‘sense of place’. We can make these digital surroundings feel real and meaningful by planning worlds rooted in how our brain naturally processes space.
Mental maps and Lynch’s findings on their makeup are a clear guidebook for how to build, rebuild and map our cities. They definitely have plenty of use cases for future immersive platforms, too. Beyond these — if we believe that imageability provides easier and even richer experiences, many of today’s toughest design challenges could benefit from applying cognitive mapping concepts.
This article stems from my work at Mapfit where we’re rebuilding maps to accurately reflect the world around us.
I’m also a founder at Multi, where we aggregate data and apps around local businesses. 🗺
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear your feedback. Please share and 👏 so other people can see it too!
