From signs to minds — Can cartographic signs be superior to regular direction signs? In a scientific study, Michaela Skiles from Middlebury, Vermont has tested, if simplified maps on signs could not only get people to their destination, but also help them to construct a better mental map, which would improve the understanding of the surrounding and help with orientation and navigation in the future. In this guest article, Michaela Skiles gives a summary of her work in this area. Finding your way through a new city has never been easier than it is today. There is a wide array of gadgets available to help you locate yourself and your destination, plan out a route to get there, and take the right turns along the way. But as you follow along to the voice of your navigation system, how much are you actually learning about the environment around you? Could you retrace that same route the next day? Could you draw your path on a map? There is a growing body of both anecdotal and experimental evidence suggesting that turn-by-turn navigational guidance hinders learning. Once you’ve punched in your destination, your mind goes on cruise control. Typical directional signs, like in-car navigation systems, simply point you in the right direction at each turn along your route. Following a series of these signs, you might arrive at your destination without understanding exactly how you got there – or how to get back home. In a previous post, Ralf explained this downside of directional signs: Directional signage is purely egocentric. The signs will tell us to go left, right or straight at a decision point, without providing us information of how we move thru the environment in connection to cardinal directions or landmarks along the way. We will reach our target only if the signs work at every decision point. If one part of the way is blocked or we missed a sign, we cannot reach our target, because we have no idea where it actually is. And it will be hard to trace back our route to the starting point, because we just followed endless signs and did not built a large-scale cognitive map of the surrounding. In a recent study, I aimed to identify how directional signs could be designed to not only get people to their destination, but also help them construct a mental map of the area along the way. Drawing from research in cognitive science, I predicted that road signs featuring highly simplified maps would encourage this spatial learning by showing travelers an image of the layout of the area. Using the guidelines for U.S. highway signage as a foundation, I developed three types of signs to evaluate, shown at this image. Text by Ralf Herrmann, the German designer and author.