0:00:00.000,0:00:03.216 What I do is I organize information. I'm a graphic designer. 0:00:03.216,0:00:05.959 Professionally, I try to make sense 0:00:05.959,0:00:09.803 often of things that don't make much sense themselves. 0:00:09.803,0:00:12.036 So my father might not understand what it is 0:00:12.036,0:00:13.726 that I do for a living. 0:00:13.726,0:00:16.003 His part of my ancestry has been farmers. 0:00:16.003,0:00:19.127 He's part of this ethnic minority called the Pontic Greeks. 0:00:19.127,0:00:23.513 They lived in Asia Minor, and fled to Greece 0:00:23.513,0:00:25.983 after a genocide about a hundred years ago, 0:00:25.983,0:00:28.908 and ever since that, migration has somewhat been 0:00:28.908,0:00:30.497 a theme in my family. 0:00:30.497,0:00:34.944 My father moved to Germany, studied there, and married, 0:00:34.944,0:00:39.208 and as a result, I now have this half-German brain 0:00:39.208,0:00:41.484 with all the analytical thinking 0:00:41.484,0:00:44.859 and that slight dorky demeanor that comes with that. 0:00:44.859,0:00:47.971 And of course it meant that I was a foreigner in both countries, 0:00:47.971,0:00:50.509 and that of course made it pretty easy for me 0:00:50.509,0:00:55.384 to migrate as well, in good family tradition, if you like. 0:00:55.384,0:00:57.721 But of course, most journeys that we undertake 0:00:57.721,0:01:01.359 from day to day are within a city, and especially 0:01:01.359,0:01:04.359 if you know the city, getting from A to B 0:01:04.359,0:01:07.784 may seem pretty obvious, right? 0:01:07.784,0:01:11.534 But the question is, why is it obvious? 0:01:11.534,0:01:14.058 How do we know where we're going? 0:01:14.058,0:01:16.242 So I washed up on a Dublin ferry port 0:01:16.242,0:01:19.898 about 12 years ago, a professional foreigner, if you like, 0:01:19.898,0:01:23.389 and I'm sure you've all had this experience before, yeah? 0:01:23.389,0:01:27.110 You arrive in a new city, and your brain is trying 0:01:27.110,0:01:29.479 to make sense of this new place. 0:01:29.479,0:01:32.535 Once you find your base, your home, 0:01:32.535,0:01:37.135 you start to built this cognitive map of your environment. 0:01:37.135,0:01:39.935 It's essentially this virtual map that only exists 0:01:39.935,0:01:42.911 in your brain. All animal species do it, 0:01:42.911,0:01:45.948 even though we all use slightly different tools. 0:01:45.948,0:01:48.724 Us humans, of course, we don't move around 0:01:48.724,0:01:51.898 marking our territory by scent, like dogs. 0:01:51.898,0:01:57.474 We don't run around emitting ultrasonic squeaks, like bats. 0:01:57.474,0:01:58.989 We just don't do that, 0:01:58.989,0:02:04.211 although a night in the Temple Bar district can get pretty wild. (Laughter) 0:02:04.211,0:02:08.075 No, we do two important things to make a place our own. 0:02:08.075,0:02:10.933 First, we move along linear routes. 0:02:10.933,0:02:14.462 Typically we find a main street, and this main street 0:02:14.462,0:02:17.225 becomes a linear strip map in our minds. 0:02:17.225,0:02:19.625 But our mind keeps it pretty simple, yeah? 0:02:19.625,0:02:22.753 Every street is generally perceived as a straight line, 0:02:22.753,0:02:27.037 and we kind of ignore the little twists and turns that the streets make. 0:02:27.037,0:02:29.588 When we do, however, make a turn into a side street, 0:02:29.588,0:02:34.300 our mind tends to adjust that turn to a 90-degree angle. 0:02:34.300,0:02:37.001 This of course makes for some funny moments 0:02:37.001,0:02:41.514 when you're in some old city layout that follows some sort of 0:02:41.514,0:02:44.636 circular city logic, yeah? 0:02:44.636,0:02:46.494 Maybe you've had that experience as well, right? 0:02:46.494,0:02:49.763 Let's say you're on some spot on a side street that projects 0:02:49.763,0:02:53.383 from a main cathedral square, and you want to get to 0:02:53.383,0:02:57.026 another point on a side street just like that. 0:02:57.026,0:03:02.252 The cognitive map in your mind may tell you, "Aris, 0:03:02.252,0:03:04.956 go back to the main cathedral square, take 0:03:04.956,0:03:08.041 a 90-degree turn, and walk down that other side street." 0:03:08.041,0:03:10.318 But somehow you feel adventurous that day, 0:03:10.318,0:03:14.924 and you suddenly discover that the two spots 0:03:14.924,0:03:17.780 were actually only a single building apart. 0:03:17.780,0:03:20.125 Now, I don't know about you, but I always feel like I find 0:03:20.125,0:03:24.786 this wormhole or this inter-dimensional portal. 0:03:24.786,0:03:28.031 So we move along linear routes 0:03:28.031,0:03:33.031 and our mind straightens streets and perceives turns 0:03:33.031,0:03:34.609 as 90-degree angles. 0:03:34.609,0:03:37.460 The second thing that we do to make a place our own 0:03:37.460,0:03:41.956 is we attach meaning and emotions to the things 0:03:41.956,0:03:44.571 that we see along those lines. 0:03:44.571,0:03:48.908 If you go to the Irish countryside, and you ask an old lady 0:03:48.908,0:03:52.832 for directions, brace yourself for some elaborate 0:03:52.832,0:03:56.793 Irish storytelling about all the landmarks. Yeah? 0:03:56.793,0:04:00.023 She'll tell you the pub where her sister used to work, 0:04:00.023,0:04:03.306 and go past the church where I got married, that kind of thing. 0:04:03.306,0:04:07.482 So we fill our cognitive maps with these markers of meaning. 0:04:07.482,0:04:10.659 What's more, we abstract, 0:04:10.659,0:04:13.344 repeat patterns, and recognize them. 0:04:13.344,0:04:16.468 We recognize them by the experiences, 0:04:16.468,0:04:19.385 and we abstract them into symbols. 0:04:19.385,0:04:22.281 And of course, we are all capable 0:04:22.281,0:04:25.257 of understanding these symbols. (Laughter) 0:04:25.257,0:04:28.518 What's more, we're all capable of understanding 0:04:28.518,0:04:32.356 the cognitive maps, and you are all capable 0:04:32.356,0:04:35.955 of creating these cognitive maps yourselves. 0:04:35.955,0:04:38.894 So next time, when you want to tell your friend how to get to your place, 0:04:38.894,0:04:41.794 you grab a beermat, grab a napkin, 0:04:41.794,0:04:46.319 and you just observe yourself create this awesome piece 0:04:46.319,0:04:50.066 of communication design. It's got straight lines. 0:04:50.066,0:04:52.532 It's got 90 degree corners. 0:04:52.532,0:04:54.629 You might add little symbols along the way. 0:04:54.629,0:04:58.307 And when you look at what you've just drawn, 0:04:58.307,0:05:03.507 you realize it does not resemble a street map. 0:05:03.507,0:05:05.820 If you were to put an actual street map 0:05:05.820,0:05:09.395 on top of what you've just drawn, you'd realize your streets 0:05:09.395,0:05:12.870 and the distances, they'd be way off. 0:05:12.870,0:05:14.761 No, what you've just drawn 0:05:14.761,0:05:18.860 is more like a diagram or a schematic. 0:05:18.860,0:05:23.275 It's a visual construct of lines, dots, letters, 0:05:23.275,0:05:26.369 designed in the language of our brains. 0:05:26.369,0:05:31.424 So it's no big surprise that the big information design icon 0:05:31.424,0:05:36.128 of the last century, the pinnacle of showing everybody 0:05:36.128,0:05:39.624 how to get from A to B, the London Underground map, 0:05:39.624,0:05:44.387 was not designed by a cartographer or a city planner. 0:05:44.387,0:05:48.625 It was designed by an engineering draftsman. 0:05:48.625,0:05:52.652 In the 1930s, Harry Beck applied the principles of 0:05:52.652,0:05:56.904 schematic diagram design, and changed 0:05:56.904,0:06:01.089 the way public transport maps are designed forever. 0:06:01.089,0:06:04.639 Now the very key to the success of this map 0:06:04.639,0:06:08.951 is in the omission of less important information 0:06:08.951,0:06:11.442 and in the extreme simplification. 0:06:11.442,0:06:15.720 So straightened streets, corners of 90 and 45 degrees, 0:06:15.720,0:06:21.546 but also the extreme geographic distortion in that map. 0:06:21.546,0:06:25.816 If you were to look at the actual locations of these stations, 0:06:25.816,0:06:28.453 you'd see they're very different. Yeah? 0:06:28.453,0:06:32.867 But this is all for the clarity of the public tube map. 0:06:32.867,0:06:36.092 Yeah? If you, say, wanted to get from Regent's Park Station 0:06:36.092,0:06:39.407 to Great Portland Street, the tube map would tell you, 0:06:39.407,0:06:44.299 take the tube, go to Baker Street, change over, take another tube. 0:06:44.299,0:06:47.664 Of course, what you don't know is that the two stations 0:06:47.664,0:06:50.738 are only about a hundred meters apart. 0:06:50.738,0:06:53.863 Now we've reached the subject of public transport, 0:06:53.863,0:06:56.377 and public transport here in Dublin 0:06:56.377,0:07:00.663 is a somewhat touchy subject. (Laughter) 0:07:00.663,0:07:04.152 For everybody who does not know the public transport here in Dublin, 0:07:04.152,0:07:07.061 essentially we have this system of local buses 0:07:07.061,0:07:10.826 that grew with the city. For every outskirt that was added, 0:07:10.826,0:07:13.138 there was another bus route added running 0:07:13.138,0:07:17.108 from the outskirt all the way to the city center, 0:07:17.108,0:07:21.793 and as these local buses approach the city center, 0:07:21.793,0:07:24.714 they all run side by side, and converge in pretty much 0:07:24.714,0:07:27.652 one main street. 0:07:27.652,0:07:30.776 So when I stepped off the boat 12 years ago, 0:07:30.776,0:07:34.427 I tried to make sense of that, 0:07:34.427,0:07:39.901 because exploring a city on foot only gets you so far. 0:07:39.901,0:07:44.653 But when you explore a foreign and new public transport system, 0:07:44.653,0:07:47.753 you will build a cognitive map in your mind 0:07:47.753,0:07:50.752 in pretty much the same way. 0:07:50.752,0:07:55.866 Typically, you choose yourself a rapid transport route, 0:07:55.866,0:07:59.945 and in your mind this route is perceived as a straight line, 0:07:59.945,0:08:02.966 and like a pearl necklace, all the stations and stops 0:08:02.966,0:08:07.239 are nicely and neatly aligned along the line, 0:08:07.239,0:08:12.206 and only then you start to discover some local bus routes 0:08:12.206,0:08:16.530 that would fill in the gaps and that allow you for those 0:08:16.530,0:08:21.098 wormhole, inter-dimensional portal shortcuts. 0:08:21.098,0:08:24.753 So I tried to make sense, and when I arrived, 0:08:24.753,0:08:28.040 I was looking for some information leaflets that would 0:08:28.040,0:08:31.152 help me crack this system and understand it, 0:08:31.152,0:08:36.990 and I found those brochures. (Laughter) 0:08:36.990,0:08:40.493 They were not geographically distorted. 0:08:40.493,0:08:44.778 They were having a lot of omission of information, 0:08:44.778,0:08:48.866 but unfortunately the wrong information, say, in the city center. 0:08:48.866,0:08:53.504 There were never actually any lines that showed the routes. 0:08:53.504,0:08:59.459 There are actually not even any stations with names. 0:08:59.459,0:09:03.648 Now the maps of Dublin transport, have gotten better, 0:09:03.648,0:09:10.361 and after I finished the project, they got a good bit better, 0:09:10.361,0:09:13.518 but still no station names, still no routes. 0:09:13.518,0:09:19.486 So, being naive, and being half-German, I decided, 0:09:19.486,0:09:21.988 "Aris, why don't you build your own map?" 0:09:21.988,0:09:24.756 So that's what I did. I researched how each 0:09:24.756,0:09:28.072 and every bus route moved through the city, 0:09:28.072,0:09:32.063 nice and logical, every bus route a separate line, 0:09:32.063,0:09:35.137 and I plotted it into my own map of Dublin, 0:09:35.137,0:09:37.899 and in the city center, 0:09:37.899,0:09:42.036 I got a nice spaghetti plate. (Laughter) 0:09:42.036,0:09:47.950 Now this is a bit of a mess, so I decided, of course, 0:09:47.950,0:09:51.675 you're going to apply the rules of schematic design, 0:09:51.675,0:09:54.334 cleaning up the corridors, widening the streets 0:09:54.334,0:09:57.850 where there were loads of buses, and making the streets 0:09:57.850,0:10:02.392 at straight, 90-degree corners, 45-degree corners, or fractions of that, 0:10:02.392,0:10:07.214 and filled it in with the bus routes. And I built this city center 0:10:07.214,0:10:11.537 bus map of the system, how it was five years ago. 0:10:11.537,0:10:14.029 I'll zoom in again so that you get the full impact of 0:10:14.029,0:10:18.383 the quays and Westmoreland Street. (Laughter) 0:10:18.383,0:10:26.793 Now I can proudly say — (Applause) — 0:10:26.793,0:10:31.081 I can proudly say, as a public transport map, 0:10:31.081,0:10:36.865 this diagram is an utter failure — (Laughter) — 0:10:36.865,0:10:38.924 except probably in one aspect: 0:10:38.924,0:10:41.977 I now had a great visual representation 0:10:41.977,0:10:46.165 of just how clogged up and overrun the city center really was. 0:10:46.165,0:10:49.100 Now call me old-fashioned, right, but I think 0:10:49.100,0:10:52.528 a public transport route map should have lines, 0:10:52.528,0:10:54.304 because that's what they are. Yeah? 0:10:54.304,0:10:57.915 They're little pieces of string that wrap their way 0:10:57.915,0:11:00.675 through the city center, or through the city. 0:11:00.675,0:11:04.571 If you will, the Greek guy inside of me feels, if I don't 0:11:04.571,0:11:09.103 get a line, it's like entering the Labyrinth of the Minotaur 0:11:09.103,0:11:12.285 without having Ariadne giving you the string to find your way. 0:11:12.285,0:11:16.391 So the outcome of my academic research, 0:11:16.391,0:11:19.897 loads of questionnaires, case studies, 0:11:19.897,0:11:24.943 and looking at a lot of maps, was that a lot of the problems 0:11:24.943,0:11:28.019 and shortcomings of the public transport system here in Dublin 0:11:28.019,0:11:30.729 was the lack of a coherent public transport map -- 0:11:30.729,0:11:33.003 a simplified, coherent public transport map -- 0:11:33.003,0:11:36.442 because I think this is the crucial step to understanding 0:11:36.442,0:11:39.940 a public transport network on a physical level, 0:11:39.940,0:11:42.405 but it's also the crucial step to make 0:11:42.405,0:11:46.155 a public transport network mappable on a visual level. 0:11:46.155,0:11:49.805 So I teamed up with a gentleman called James Leahy, 0:11:49.805,0:11:53.430 a civil engineer and a recent Master's graduate of 0:11:53.430,0:11:56.993 the Sustainable Development Program at DIT, 0:11:56.993,0:12:00.919 and together we drafted this simplified model network 0:12:00.919,0:12:04.356 which I could then go ahead and visualize. 0:12:04.356,0:12:06.471 So here's what we did. 0:12:06.471,0:12:11.156 We distributed these rapid transport corridors 0:12:11.156,0:12:15.805 throughout the city center, and extended them into the outskirts. 0:12:15.805,0:12:18.543 Rapid, because we wanted them to be served 0:12:18.543,0:12:21.969 by rapid transport vehicles, yeah? 0:12:21.969,0:12:24.912 They would get exclusive road use, where possible, 0:12:24.912,0:12:28.442 and it would be high-quantity, high-quality transport. 0:12:28.442,0:12:31.338 James wanted to use bus rapid transport for that, 0:12:31.338,0:12:34.368 rather than light rail. For me, it was important 0:12:34.368,0:12:38.458 that the vehicles that would run on those rapid transport corridors 0:12:38.458,0:12:44.506 would be visibly distinguishable from local buses on the street. 0:12:44.506,0:12:47.749 Now we could take out all the local buses 0:12:47.749,0:12:50.956 that ran alongside those rapid transport means. 0:12:50.956,0:12:54.455 Any gaps that appeared in the outskirts were filled again. 0:12:54.455,0:12:57.618 So, in other words, if there was a street in an outskirt 0:12:57.618,0:13:00.581 where there had been a bus, we put a bus back in, 0:13:00.581,0:13:05.144 only now these buses wouldn't run all the way to the city center 0:13:05.144,0:13:08.626 but connect to the nearest rapid transport mode, 0:13:08.626,0:13:10.570 one of these thick lines over there. 0:13:10.570,0:13:13.959 So the rest was merely a couple of months of work, 0:13:13.959,0:13:17.001 and a couple of fights with my girlfriend of our place 0:13:17.001,0:13:20.294 constantly being clogged up with maps, 0:13:20.294,0:13:22.894 and the outcome, one of the outcomes, was this map 0:13:22.894,0:13:28.007 of the Greater Dublin Area. I'll zoom in a little bit. 0:13:28.007,0:13:31.583 This map only shows the rapid transport connections, 0:13:31.583,0:13:34.869 no local bus, very much in the Metro map style 0:13:34.869,0:13:38.808 that was so successful in London, and that since 0:13:38.808,0:13:42.152 has been exported to so many other major cities, 0:13:42.152,0:13:44.644 and therefore is the language that we should use 0:13:44.644,0:13:47.513 for public transport maps. 0:13:47.513,0:13:52.817 What's also important is, with a simplified network like this, 0:13:52.817,0:13:55.517 it now would become possible for me 0:13:55.517,0:13:58.730 to tackle the ultimate challenge, 0:13:58.730,0:14:02.243 and make a public transport map for the city center, 0:14:02.243,0:14:05.517 one where it wouldn't just show rapid transport connections 0:14:05.517,0:14:09.077 but also all the local bus routes, streets and the likes, 0:14:09.077,0:14:11.253 and this is what a map like this could like. 0:14:11.253,0:14:14.652 I'll zoom in a little bit. 0:14:14.652,0:14:20.885 In this map, I'm including each transport mode, 0:14:20.885,0:14:26.106 so rapid transport, bus, DART, tram and the likes. 0:14:26.106,0:14:32.429 Each individual route is represented by a separate line. 0:14:32.429,0:14:37.303 The map shows each and every station, 0:14:37.303,0:14:40.392 each and every station name, 0:14:40.392,0:14:45.079 and I'm also displaying side streets, 0:14:45.079,0:14:49.066 in fact, most of the side streets even with their name, 0:14:49.066,0:14:53.378 and for good measure, also a couple of landmarks, 0:14:53.378,0:14:56.192 some of them signified by little symbols, 0:14:56.192,0:14:59.306 others by these isometric three-dimensional 0:14:59.306,0:15:00.875 bird's-eye-view drawings. 0:15:00.875,0:15:04.068 The map is relatively small in overall size, 0:15:04.068,0:15:07.116 so something that you could still hold as a fold-out map, 0:15:07.116,0:15:10.818 or display in a reasonably-sized display box on a bus shelter. 0:15:10.818,0:15:15.318 I think it tries to be the best balance 0:15:15.318,0:15:18.483 between actual representation 0:15:18.483,0:15:24.069 and simplification, the language of way-finding in our brain. 0:15:24.069,0:15:27.517 So straightened lines, cleaned-up corners, 0:15:27.517,0:15:29.468 and, of course, that very, very important 0:15:29.468,0:15:34.648 geographic distortion that makes public transport maps possible. 0:15:34.648,0:15:36.609 If you, for example, have a look at the two main 0:15:36.609,0:15:38.957 corridors that run through the city, 0:15:38.957,0:15:41.105 the yellow and orange one over here, this is how 0:15:41.105,0:15:44.428 they look in an actual, accurate street map, 0:15:44.428,0:15:48.112 and this is how they would look in my distorted, 0:15:48.112,0:15:51.373 simplified public transport map. 0:15:51.373,0:15:54.507 So for a successful public transport map, 0:15:54.507,0:15:56.500 we should not stick to accurate representation, 0:15:56.500,0:15:59.319 but design them in the way our brains work. 0:15:59.319,0:16:02.542 The reactions I got were tremendous. It was really good to see. 0:16:02.542,0:16:06.166 And of course, for my own self, I was very happy to see 0:16:06.166,0:16:09.588 that my folks in Germany and Greece finally have an idea 0:16:09.588,0:16:15.566 what I do for a living. (Laughter) Thank you. (Applause)