One of the best user docs ever...
I've just recently returned from a nice get-away to the U.K., Germany, and Switzerland. While there, I traveled almost exclusively via bus, train, and subway. Those are such reliable and affordable means of transportation; we don't really have much that compares with them here in the States.
Winding my way around London via the tube, I had a little epiphany: the London Underground map is one of the greatest pieces of user documentation ever assembled.
(To be fair, am not sure if the London Underground came before the Paris Metro, cause I think it is equally simple to read and get around.) In a city of many millions of people with thousands of combinations of connections to get you from point A to point B, the tube map is an incredible model of simplicity of information design. Zones, lines, stops, transfer points...it's all easy enough to comprehend that my daughter could easily map out routes for our various expeditions throughout the city. Ah, if only computer software were this digestible :-)
Harry Beck was the original inspiration (or designer even) of the "definitive" underground/tube map - most of the others are inspired by his original design.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Beck_(graphic_designer)
There's a copy of his original up at Finchley Central on the Northern Line as well as in the Transport Museum in Covent Garden
-- mike
Posted by mike wallis on July 11, 2008 at 12:55 AM MDT #
Hey, Mike, thanks for that info and link. I suppose I could have done a modest amount of research to track this down, but unfortunately, work got in the way. :-)
Posted by alan mcclellan on July 14, 2008 at 08:56 AM MDT #