Information Design Journal 17(2), 91–108

© 2009 John Benjamins Publishing Company

d o i : 10.1075/idj.17.2.03fen

Tim Fendley
Making sense of the city
A collection of design principles for urban wayfinding

Keywords: wayfinding system, legible cities, pedestrians,

map design, product design, transport information,
interaction, prototyping, evaluation, implementation
planning, principles

This article reviews the principles behind, and

development of, a coordinated wayfinding system for
walking in London. Wayfinding in cities is fundamentally
an issue of urban design and architecture, but for this
project the use of information design to respond to
people’s needs was at the fore. Where urban design
is concerned with the space between the buildings,
information design is concerned with the space between
Figure 1.  The wayfinding study.
the ears.

Introduction
The idea of Legible London is to provide better options
for the millions who walk every day – more than half
of all journeys in the capital. In 2003 Applied Informa-
tion Group (AIG) started work on a wayfinding study,
entitled ‘Legible London’. This study identified no fewer
than 32 separate pedestrian sign systems in the central
area alone, resulting in visual noise rather than reli-
able, coordinated information. Legible London aims to
provide that coordination: crossing neighbourhoods and
borough boundaries, connecting up with other transport
modes, and delivering information not just in the street,
but in all the ways people find their way around.
At the beginning of 2005, the Central London
Partnership commissioned study was published and
began to circulate widely. Its central proposal – for a
coordinated system across the capital in time for the 2012
Olympic Games – received in principle support from
London boroughs; following a public exhibition, Applied
Information Group and Lacock Gullam developed a
prototype sign system, which was installed in the West
End in November 2007. The prototype centered on Bond

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Tim Fendley  •  Making sense of the city
Street tube station, which is sited on Oxford Street and
a full 200m away from New Bond Street itself. (There
isn’t actually a ‘Bond Street’ at all). The scheme consisted
of seventeen Monolith and Minilith® street signs, two
fingerposts, introducing heads-up landmark maps and
village addressing. It included connections to other
transport modes, with information on exit signs and on
maps within the tube station and on the surrounding
bus stops and shelters. The scheme also included 50,000
printed ‘shopping maps’ of the area, distributed at the
tube station, retail stores and on the street with the help
of West End Guides.
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idj 17(2), 2009, 91-108
TfL have confirmed Applied Information Group and
Lacock Gullam as system designers to develop the
system and oversee the implementation of three large
pilot schemes by the close of 2009.
London
UK’s capital city has a populous of about eight million
(7.6m) (Office of National Statistics, 2009) that is predicted
to increase by around ten percent over the next twenty
years (7.7% by 2019; 11% by 2024) (Office of National Statis-
tics, 2009). The city has an aged and congested transport
network, with one of the oldest tube systems in the world
and a restricted strategic road network. Major roads in
London are, even today, in essence the historic thorough-
fares connecting the city’s network of villages, with very
few dual carriageways. The city essentially grew along
main roads connecting villages and then infilling between.
Prior to 1965, London was a county of 28 metropolitan
boroughs. The 1965 reorganisation consolidated those
boroughs into 12 inner London boroughs. A further 58
boroughs, county boroughs and urban districts from
Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, Essex and Hertfordshire were
annexed to form an additional 20 outer London boroughs
and form the 32-borough Greater London we have today.
The City of London financial district has always remained
administratively separate from Greater London.
Like many cities, each borough has its own leader-
ship, highway authority and street guidelines amongst
many other local responsibilities. In 2000, the office of
London’s elected Mayor was established and one of the
first acts of the Mayor was to pull together all of the city’s
transport modes under one organisation – Transport
for London. The now directly elected mayor has control
over more transport decisions and revenues than any
Figure 2.  Minilith® and Monolith street signs, printed
walking maps and integration within transport hubs.
Tim Fendley  •  Making sense of the city
previous administrative authority in London’s history.
Since 2000, the transport system has undergone a
rejuvenation, with bus travel doubled and great efforts
made to connect the modes, chiefly linking the tube to
the bus networks.
Information for walkers, however, has remained
disjointed and unconsidered. Areas in the city are tackled
piecemeal and ad-hoc. Within a borough there can be
numerous schemes with large gaps in between. The issue
is most acute at borough boundaries, where there are
only limited examples of boroughs working together.
Guidance
The Legible London wayfinding study uncovered a lack
of sophisticated guidance. It was apparant that knowl-
edge of the design of pedestrian information was thin
on the ground. Research on the existing schemes showed
that in many cases guidance either did not exist or
referred to inappropriate standards, such as the Depart-
ment of Transport TSRGD, which defines vehicular
signs. When guidance did exist it was inconsistent.
In the context of the street environment, the study
identified difficulties with the representation of informa-
tion. The use of scale, for example, just within the central
area, included every possible method of describing
distance: metres, kilometres, yards, fractions of miles,
minutes, even hours. Information on the street was in a
myriad of colours and typefaces, with no single appear-
ance taking precedence.
But to concentrate simply on the visual appearance
would be to ignore the central requirement of a wayfind-
ing system: that it is a ‘system’, and where information is
placed, how locations are referred to and how the system
functions (and therefore can be managed) needs to be
coordinated and of a sufficient quality that it will be
recognised, respected and used. Research commissioned
as part of the study showed that street signs were only
idj 17(2), 2009, 91-108
being used by 3.7% of walkers, compared to exit signs at
tube stations, referred to by 73% of people. While not a
precise measure, this shows information is used when
provided in a reasonably predictable fashion (most tube
exits are nowadays marked).
Ad-hoc commissioning
There were some high quality initiatives, within the
financial district and Islington, but they were very
different from each other and stopped abruptly at the
borough boundaries. The content and placement of
the information was not only different from scheme to
scheme: it also varied within the schemes themselves.
The plethora of local schemes supported the theory that
the ad-hoc nature of implementation is counter to creat-
ing a working system for users, and that the sophistica-
tion necessary to help the travelling public had been
underestimated. The demand for better information was
evident from the number of separate schemes that had
sprung up.
The study proposed two things: that a partnership
of the boroughs, Transport for London and landowners
(private estates) work together to implement one coor-
dinated ‘walking’ system, and that this system should
be based on best practice, researched and city-wide
methodologies. In a similar vein, the early tube system
in London, which comprised separately owned and run
railways such as the Metropolitan Railway (now the
Metropolitan line) and the Metropolitan District Railway
(District line). They had their own line diagrams and it
wasn’t until 1933 that they were amalgamated and formed
the London Passenger Transport Board.
The study outlined a coordinated system, applying
core principles and structures, flexible enough to adapt
to different areas, that could be implemented by differ-
ent bodies. It also relied on the viewpoint of the traveling
public as its central starting point for this initiative.
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Tim Fendley  •  Making sense of the city
The difficulties of finding one’s way
In London, the problem of disorientation can be acute.
People find many areas of the city hard to understand,
and this induces considerable stress. The realisation of
being ‘lost’ is a negative feeling, sometimes bringing on
panic and a sense of impending disaster. This may seem
to be problematic only for the tourist, or for someone
visiting an area of the capital for the first time; after all,
those who know the place can find their way around no
matter how obtusely the environment presents itself. But
this underestimates the multiple effects of poor legibility
of the urban form and street environment.
It can be just as problematic for someone who knows
the area as for a stranger. The time and effort required
can still be considerable and require concentration.
If you are spending your time looking for landmarks,
thinking about where to go next, checking you have
not missed your turn, then your time is unproductive,
leaving little scope for reflection, observation, and taking
interest in attractions – for being ‘involved with’ the place
rather than just having to navigate it.
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idj 17(2), 2009, 91-108
Bubbles of knowledge
Another way of looking at this is to explore the precise
knowledge of recent visitors, both to uncover their
mental maps and their detailed understanding of places
and names. One research subject, from South Korea, had
spent two years in London at college, and had been to
the West End on numerous trips. She was one of the 45%
of people found in an earlier study to be using the Tube
map to navigate on foot. The illustration gives an idea of
the places she had visited in her two years. Her naviga-
tion strategy was simple, find the nearest tube station,
remember directions, seek advice or be guided-in by
mobile and then return retracing her steps.
This is a perfectly logical approach for someone
for whom not only the urban form but the culture and
language are foreign. It highlighted for us that for this
subject, the strength of the Tube system, through the
medium of the simplified diagram that is the Tube
map, provided the security and certainty to allow this
subject to delve deep into the West End, often in the
evenings.
Figure 3.  Locations known
over two years and how
it appears as bubbles of
knowledge arranged over
the tube map.
Tim Fendley  •  Making sense of the city
At the University of Technology in Vienna, Prof.
Hermann Knoflacher talks of the importance of certainty
at interchanges to and from transport modes. He is
quantifying the value of uncertainty, and has identified
this factor as a major barrier to use, much maligned by
the infrastructure obsessed transport profession. The
observations from our tests highlighted a similar reliance
on the well known in direct opposition to time saving
alternatives. Our work also highlighted the failures, in
design terms, of the majority of maps that are currently
available to the public. The above subject didn’t use
printed maps as she stated that they were too hard to use,
she could never work out where she was in the map (her
words). This is not unusual.
In addition to observing her navigational strategy,
we realised that she had learnt ‘bubbles’ of geographic
information of the West End radiating around tube
stations, each with a limited mental map. We found that
in Central London, most people had little if any under-
standing of the relationship between these bubbles, in
terms of distance and direction above ground. And why
should they? They were accessed from under ground
idj 17(2), 2009, 91-108
(with a disorienting arrival) and London provides very
few vistas from which it is possible to see one area from
another. Indeed, with its medieval street pattern, it does a
good job at hiding them.
Eureka moments
This moment comes when confidence rises, and experi-
mentation or accident pushes someone to wander far
enough from a known area (around a tube station) to
enter into the bubble around another. Suddenly two
mental maps are joined, often marked by an exclamation:
‘Ah ha, I know where I am now’. The sense of increased
confidence is tangible.
The question this posed the development team was
how to achieve this eureka moment, and step by step
allow travellers to build a fuller picture of the urban
form and the relationship between places. The team was
also mindful of the principle of awareness, put simply,
of not knowing what one does not know. Consequently
the team were looking for a snowballing of knowledge,
whereby a pedestrian with some knowledge of the city,
Figure 4.  Actual geographic
relationship of the bubbles
of knowledge, and the
aim of Legible London to
connect these short-walk
areas of knowledge.
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Tim Fendley  •  Making sense of the city
but as yet unconnected, has a eureka moment by acci-
dent or encouragement; the city seems smaller, and by
deduction, other areas may also be seen as closer. It was
hypothesised that by making visible the physical connec-
tions successfully would open the door to many other
viable alternatives.
To create this awareness and learning, the aim was to
design a system that could allow people to teach them-
selves the shape of the city and the relationships between
places. The result would be increased confidence and
reducing uncertainty, making the choice to walk a realis-
tic option.
Principled approach
With the benefit of learning from earlier projects with
Bristol Legible City and in Milton Keynes, the proj-
ect team adopted an approach with certain defining
principles, refining these throughout the development
process, to create a system that could tackle the incred-
ible diversity of the city, be flexible enough to adapt to
different needs and still, even with variation and adapta-
tion, function for users.
During the initial development period, over twenty
principles were identified. Some proved more resonant
than others, many actually were different descriptions of
the same core principle. These principles were reduced to
nine to guide the planning and design of the prototype
phase of the system.
It is important to mention at this point that principles
cannot be separated from the creation of solutions, but
need to be developed in parallel. The method used by the
development team was agile in style, fast moving and not
fixed until the conclusion of development.
Outlined here are six of the nine core principles of
Legible London: The seamless journey principle puts the
user (rather than the medium) at the centre of informa-
tion; The principle of human scale emphasises solutions
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idj 17(2), 2009, 91-108
that respond to how people think, move, congregate and
remember; naming the parts is the principle of consistent
and memorable addressing; progressive disclosure is a
well-known principle for imparting hyper-rich informa-
tion in chunks. The principle of ‘don’t make me think’
tests the design, and the principle of parsimony seeks the
balance between information scarcity and information
overload. The second, third and ninth principles, ‘predict-
able’, ‘inclusive’ and ‘help me to learn’, are not covered in
this paper.
The first principle: Seamless journeys
The seamless principle leads to thinking in terms of jour-
neys rather than jurisdictions. No matter how difficult
it is to knit parts together, a city that provides seamless
information about places and travel will be easier and
more enjoyable. This central challenge to the organisa-
tions that have responsibilities along the journey should
not be underestimated.
In a previous study for TfL, Buchanans (Heuman,
Buchanan, Wedderbum, & Sheldon, 2005) had identi-
fied striders and strollers, now an accepted method of
defining walkers at TfL. Simply explained, striders seek to
journey from A to B and strollers are more interested in
activities, as opposed to direction. The modus operandi
of the striders is to seek the least number of steps as
possible to get as close as possible to their target, the
strollers heads in a direction but are willing to wander
around, as plans are malleable. It is worth noting that
Prof. Hermann Knoflacher identified the benefit of the
motor vehicle in respect to the strider, as the car driver
will more often than not alight closer to the desired
destination as opposed to a bus or rail stop.
Developmental research found that striders and
strollers have many methods for navigation and use
different tools, depending in the context and what suits
them. Some pre-plan but many never do. This meant that
Tim Fendley  •  Making sense of the city
regardless of the tool used: website, GPS device, guide-
book or tube map, the cohesive provision of information
was a goal. The ‘touch points’ of the city’s information
systems would be more useful if integrated so that users
can effortlessly set out on a journey with the confidence
idj 17(2), 2009, 91-108
Figure 5.  The strider at the top is
looking for reliability and simplicity,
the stroller, for what to do next.
Figure 6.  Applications of Legible
London throughout the journey.
that the system will adapt to their needs.
It’s worth noting that when lost, the quickest strategy
is to ask for help. Local people, conversation and their
memories are a relevant navigational tool. Legible
London was devised to support more advice of this
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Tim Fendley  •  Making sense of the city
nature by providing the addressing and navigational
language so that help connects with information further
on in the journey (relating to another principle: name the
parts). This takes us into the whole field of communica-
tions theory and shared backgrounds of understanding,
but that is another story.
The ‘seamless journey’ is the first principle as this is
probably the largest challenge and the reason why, in
most cities in the world, pieces of wayfinding information
are not ‘joined-up’ and are tackled in an ad-hoc manner.
The fourth principle: Human scale
A system based on human scales of distance, memory
and recognition has more ability to resonate with how
people think and therefore is more likely to be used and
be useful. By loosely defining known areas in terms of a
five minute walk (often defining an identifiable neigh-
bourhood), journeys between areas can appear easily
walkable. These areas are invariably represented by
mental maps.
Figure 7.
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idj 17(2), 2009, 91-108
Equally as important as the need to connect known areas
is the need to refine people’s knowledge of local and
unfamiliar areas; this again will reduce people’s reluctance
to walk due to a lack of confidence. The result is to make
stronger connections and to solidify local knowledge.
London’s urban villages
The urban design text A Pattern Language (Alexander et
al, 1977) inspired numerous applications of this principle;
firstly, the idea of using London‘s ‘urban villages’ as a
basic navigational unit:
People need an identifiable spatial unit to belong to…
Help people to define the neighbourhoods they live in,
not more than 300 yards across, with no more than 400
or 500 inhabitants. In existing cities, encourage local
groups to organise themselves to form such neighbour-
hoods. Give the neighbourhoods some degree of au-
tonomy. Keep major roads outside these neighbourhoods.
(Alexander et al, 1977, pp 81-84).
Figure 8.
Tim Fendley  •  Making sense of the city idj 17(2), 2009, 91-108

Confirmed five minutes as the basic walking unit of

Legible London:

Each subculture needs a centre for its public life: a

place where you can go to see people, and to be seen…
Encourage the gradual formation of a promenade at
the heart of every community, linking the main activ-
ity nodes, and placed centrally, so that each point in
the community is with 10 minutes’ walk of it. Put main
points of attraction at the two ends, to keep a constant
movement up and down.
(Alexander et al, 1977, pp 169-173).

Inspired the idea of ‘stepping stones’ and trying to link

people between them in the placement of signs:

The layout of paths will seem right and comfortable only

when it is compatible with the process of walking. And
the process of walking is far more subtle than one might
imagine…to lay out paths, first place goals at natural
points of interest. Then connect the goals to one another
to form the paths. The paths may be straight, or gently
curving between goals; their paving should swell around
the goal. The goals should never be more than a few
hundred feet apart.
(Alexander et al, 1977, pp 586-588).
Kevin Lynch’s Image of the City (1960) has provided
many a starting point within the urban design profes-
sion. It is also highly relevant to wayfinding by providing
a lexicon to understand how the urban form is perceived
by the non-professional.
Lynch’s (1960) definition of paths as the basic struc-
ture of mental mapping is apparent in the collections
of mental maps gathered as part of the project. Edges,
uncrossable boundaries are often very helpful for recog-
nition and memory. Nodes are also important, as these
are the strategic spots in the city, often with vistas and are
demanding decision points.
Figure 9.  Urban design Compendium.
More often than other features, landmarks appear as
the most memorable and useful of ‘locators’. Within Legi-
ble London, the definition of landmarks also includes
anything that can create a ‘mark’ in memory. This could
be a symbolic building, but it could equally be a open
green space or a derelict site.
Finally, Lynch’s (1960) districts are symbolic of Alex-
ander’s identifiable neighbourhoods, and appear in recent
urban planning texts. Most noteably in the UK, Towards
an Urban Renaissance by Richard Rogers and the Urban
Task Force (1999) identified a hierarchy of urban centres
and facilities. The Urban Design Compendium (English
Partnerships, 2000) defined a neighbourhood unit of not
more than 400m across. Legible London continues and
makes extensive use of these definitions of areas, they
are termed ‘villages’ and ‘neighbourhoods’ in the system,
according to size.

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Tim Fendley  •  Making sense of the city idj 17(2), 2009, 91-108

Caltex petrol station, make a right, and then on your first

left make a left turn and you will see a laundromat. If you
see the laundromat take a right there and you will see a
real estate agent called ABC Real Estates. We are on that
building’s second floor. Be there in three minutes!”
These sequences are a form of mental map. If such
maps are easy to construct and remember, then it is easy
to find your way around. If they are difficult or confusing
to recall, then the area seems harder to grasp.
Mental maps work because they identifiy nested
systems of areas, the directions referring in sequence to
the area tackled first, the marker for the next area and so
on. It is fair to say that, so long as these systems exist and
Figure 10.  The developing definition of villages and are obvious enough to be used, directions can easily be
Neighbourhoods. given verbally and therefore remembered. A key element
in making this work is the consistent use of local and
The fifth principle: Naming the parts landmark names. If a node, path, landmark or district has
a name, then it’s easy to refer to and understand how it
What makes an environment easy to understand? fits in the whole city.
One of the best ways to observe how a place can be made
more ‘legible’ is to find out how directions are given by
word-of-mouth. Invariably, spoken directions, unless
the destination is actually in sight, are given in steps,
each defined by an intermediate goal. These goals may
be discernible landmarks, junctions or obvious points,
and the route to the next goal covers an area, a path, a
node or a distinctive district: In London we’ve heard
spoken: “From Tottenham Court Road down Charing
Cross Road until you get to Cambridge Circus – it’s a
big junction with a theatre. Look for Covent Garden and
head straight in – you should come to Seven Dials, you
then look for the road to the Drury Lane area of Covent
Garden, when you get to there the Opera House is well
signposted, no problem!”
Here’s a similar story we heard in Seoul: “Get off
the Shinsa metro station on line three, and exit station
through exit number five. Walk 300 metres towards Figure 11.  Mental map showing the relationship between
Dosan road. On your second alleyway just past the GS some of London’s villages.

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Tim Fendley  •  Making sense of the city
Figure 12.  Place name hierarchy
London already possesses the layers of local area names
needed to develop a coherent system, but some of them
have fallen into disuse or are currently not visible at all.
Basing the London Walking Map on this ‘missing layer’
will help both residents and visitors to make better use
of mental maps, and so better understand and commu-
nicate the city. There are many different sizes, shapes and
types of areas in Central London, and they can be better
identified, used, and then (re-) embedded into common
parlance. Using a map of these area names as the base
map for London offers a realistic opportunity to move
away from over-reliance on the tube diagram or on over-
complicated street plans.
Legible London and addressing
Legible London can influence the behaviour of London-
ers and visitors simply by creating awareness that
London has a number of named areas, and that all you
need to find a place is to know what area it is in. A tourist
idj 17(2), 2009, 91-108
staying in West London can tell from a Legible London
Map that there are two tube stations serving Bloomsbury,
that Covent Garden is only next door, and then it’s not
far to Soho from there. When on the journey, names
offer reassurance, and detailed information is available
for the immediate vicinity. Greater visibility of London’s
strong street name structure would greatly support this
also: the street names should be predictably displayed,
at every corner, in a known and obvious position. Name
plates could be developed to identify the area addresses
too, giving them an even more central role to play in
London’s legibility.
There are numerous parallels elsewhere. In Asian
cities, there’s often a different type of missing address
level. In Seoul, South Korea, there are 25 districts (gu)
which are broken into large area blocks (dong) approxi-
mating one square km each, depending on population
and geographic size. 
Here’s where it gets confusing. The blocks (dong) are
further divided numerically into what the South Koreans
call ‘bunji’. However throughout the last 100 years, this
inefficient bunji system has lost all numerical logic from
its numerical sequence. This is due to decades of merg-
ing and dividing of the South Korean land, especially
through ultra-rapid urban and economical growth from
the 1960s to the 1980s. Today, it is unsurprising to find
300 bunji next to 130 bunji opposite 297-1 bunji. Nor is it
unusual to find five houses within 300 bunji alone, or to
find one big building spanning 330 bunji to 335 bunji! 
As a result, modern South Korea has suffered from
the lack of a coordinated and intuitive address system
on the lowest ‘street names and building number’ level.
The South Korean government has been aware of this
conundrum for some decades, but is still struggling to
solve this problem once and for all due to their less than
perfect execution and bureaucracy.  
On the contrary, countries like China and North
Korea have relatively reasonable addressing systems
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Tim Fendley  •  Making sense of the city idj 17(2), 2009, 91-108

making use of street names just as in London. Japan,

which implemented the Korean bunji (or ‘jibun’, as the
Japanese call it) system during its colonial rule in 1910,
has modernised the system in 1962. 

The sixth principle: Progressive disclosure

Moving from the fundamental principles to principles
relating to application, progressive disclosure is a way of
referring to the right information at the right time. Give
pedestrians only the information they need at any given
time and don’t overload them with any more. Recognise
the importance of different forms of media in delivering
pertinent information and provide the connection to the
next point. A route is littered with decision points and
a method to edit directions into memorable and useful
collections is needed.
Passini describes the way in which a wayfinder’s deci- Figure 14.  A wayfinding decision tree (Paul Arthur/Romedi
sions and options made during a journey can be broken Passini).
down:

In order to reach a destination in an urban context, you
will have to make additional decisions, such as to take a
bus, to go downtown, and then to walk to a given shop.
Any of these decisions rely on further decisions. To take
a bus may require you to leave the house and to walk to
the bus stop. All of these decisions can be further broken
down. To walk to the bus stop may imply to walk along
the footpath to the intersection and to turn right.
(Arthur and Passini, 2002, pp 29-30)
Figure 13.  The motorway sign system
in the UK is a successful example of
progressive disclosure; in this example
at this point on the M1 only the general
direction of each connecting road is
given; no further information is required
until the next step of the journey.
Effective wayfinding systems reflect this thinking by
offering different levels of information in successive
stages, as opposed to providing the necessary informa-
tion for any journey at any instance.
An analysis of a Legible London Minilith® demon-
strates how a staged provision of information caters for
different wayfinding tasks in an intuitive order; detail
increases down the sign panels. Integration with other
transport systems (and their respective processes of
progressive disclosure) is achieved by providing a gate-
way into another system from the sign.
A formula was derived to determine ‘what infor-
mation goes where’ using progressive disclosure: the
aim is to provide the right information at the right
place, to answer the question of the traveller within the
constraints of the location.

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Tim Fendley  •  Making sense of the city
The seventh principle: Don’t make me think
This principle, coined by Steve Krug (2000) and derived
from online interface design, is highly relevant for strate-
gic wayfinding. The principle relates to how information
is best presented: highly intuitive and easy to under-
stand, reducing the effort required by the user wherever
possible. Using commonly understood symbols, codes
and appearances to aid comprehension.
In addition to being understandable, information is
best presented in a way which is attractive and recogni-
sable. Usability testing shows how obvious some concepts
need to be in order to be accepted. A common sense
approach, tested carefully with the public at every point
was used in the development of the prototype.
This design philosophy is also commonly known as
User-Centred Design, as popularised by Donald Norman:
Design should make use of the natural properties of
people and of the world: it should exploit natural con-
straints. As much as possible, it should operate without
instructions or labels. Any necessary instruction or
training should be needed only once; with each expla-
nation the person should be able to say, “Of course,” or
“Yes, I see.” A simple explanation will suffice if there is
reason to the design, if everything has its place and its
function, and if the outcomes of actions are visible. If
the explanation leads to the person to think or say, “How
am I going to remember that?” the design has failed.
(Norman, 1988, pp 188)
Figure 15.  North-up and heads-up
orientation
idj 17(2), 2009, 91-108
This methodology refers to the prioritisation of catering
for the user’s needs and expectations when interacting
with a design above other considerations – simply put, it
is based on empathy.
An example of this principle in practice appears with
the use of heads-up mapping; by removing the mental
transformation needed for orientation with north-up
mapping (when not facing north), it is easier for the user
to relate the map to the environment.
An important consideration for the system is that it
should be able to answer users’ questions quickly; Passini
outlines this need:
Information, in particular graphic information, has to be
designed for normal environmental perception, which
consists of this scanning and glancing process. People
tend to ignore information displays that are not de-
signed appropriately, or to walk away from such displays
after spending a minimum of time in futile search. The
design of signs with multiple destinations and of map
displays must be rethought in these terms.
(Arthur and Passini, 2002, pp 34)
Figure 16.  A user’s saccades and fixations over the map, not
everything is seen or remembered.
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Tim Fendley  •  Making sense of the city
Understanding cognition is a key issue in creating an
intuitive system; an unobtrusive design allows users to
comfortably isolate the information which is relevant to
the task at hand:
We have been able to document many instances which
show that when people are executing a decision plan or
part of a plan, they will perceive information directly
relevant to that plan. Information that is not directly
applicable to the immediate plan, even if it would be rel-
evant sometime later, tends not to be seen. The location
of information is therefore a crucial issue; it is not an
exaggeration to say that information at the wrong place
is as good as no information at all.
(Arthur and Passini, 2002, pp 34)
Figure 17.  The representations of landmarks and visual links
to the street, such as street names and symbols are close to
the realities.
104
idj 17(2), 2009, 91-108
The function of symbols in cartography is primarily to
encode information from the environment as a form of
‘shorthand’; the continuity of these codes is more impor-
tant than their literality.
User-centred design involves understanding what
users perceive as they interact with the product; on the
street, people need to connect the map with what they
see in front of them in order to orientate themselves. To
make this task easier, prominent features of the environ-
ment can be brought to the user’s attention, such as 3D
landmark buildings.
This principle also explains the problems posed of
the user by the plethora of ad-hoc, unconnected schemes
currently in existence. The result is too much to work out
and therefore roundly ignored, supporting the need to
tackling a city in its entirety.
The eighth principle: Parsimony
Too much information can be counterproductive; too
little information and key questions posed by a lost visi-
tor cannot be answered. This is especially challenging for
the design of maps, which are often deemed too ‘noisy’
when they have too many ‘layers’ of information and
yet are being asked to perform a number of tasks. Street
Figure 18.  How the provision of information influences the
quality of decisions. A balanced volume of information is
ideal. 
Tim Fendley  •  Making sense of the city idj 17(2), 2009, 91-108

scapes can also appear illegible when cluttered with

redundant signs.
Parsimony – the concept of ‘enough but not too much’
– is achieved by careful and considered trade-offs in the
design. Not everything can respond to every question, but
a solution can be the best response in a particular situation.
It is crucial to the success of an information system
that it should follow this principle; decision-making may
be impaired otherwise, as Peter Morville explains:

People may not want information, because having it can

be painful and troublesome. When it comes to informa-
tion, sometimes less is more. We know this explicitly
from studies that show and inverted-U relationship
between the volume of information and decision quality.
(Morville, 2005, pp 165)

The function of mapping (for pedestrian wayfinding

purposes) is to provide a guide to the streets, rather than
a scaled version of reality:

As an abstraction, [wayfinding maps] should be devel-

oped in a manner that facilitates understanding of it as
a representation of reality; it should be simple enough
not to contain unnecessary information, but at the same
time realistic enough to compensate for the fact that it is
an abstraction.
(Arthur and Passini, 2002, pp 188)

Keeping this concept in mind, the parsimony prin- Figure 19. 

ciple was chiefly applied in the degree of topographical
abstraction and the density of information used through-
out the mapping elements of the system.
A different balance of information density and clarity
was demanded by the planner and finder maps. Although
they describe the environment with similar graphic
language, their differing uses and scales dictate the
density of information that constitutes a balanced design.
However, when used together, they have the right balance;
the system can answer different questions more easily.
Testing the prototype
The prototype around the Bond Street area, formed of
seventeen audio enhanced street signs, complimentary
bus stops and shelters, revised signs and maps under-
ground, and supported by hand-out maps has been well
received by local government, retailers and the public.
The 44 pieces of unused street information and objects

105
Tim Fendley  •  Making sense of the city
removed from the area also showed that an effective
system does not have to clutter the envionment.
This prototype was the subject of some of the
most extensive evaluation of a scheme of this kind. A
comprehensive mix of research methods were used
to consider the wayfinding situation both before and
after the prototype was installed. This included 2600
interviews with members of the public; 600 behavioural
observations; 100 functional tests (measuring the time
it took members of the public to complete specific
wayfinding tasks using the system); collecting public
comments and a disability and inclusion review by a
nine-person expert panel.
The results showed that with a 49% awareness level
for the new system six weeks after its launch, there was a
decrease in the number of people feeling lost from 6% to
4% (this is in the context of the number of people who
admitted to being lost when interviewed, the real figures
are probably higher). There was an increase from 9% to
15% of positional knowledge and functional tests showed
a 16% time saving improvement for pedestrian journeys
within the Bond Street area.
This was coupled with a positive acceptance for the
system: an 85% satisfaction level for ease of use of the
new system; 91% of interviewees stated that the system
should be rolled out across the capital, and 62% of
interviewees stated that the new system would encourage
them to walk more.
The prototype also showed widespread use by the
public. An extrapolated count put the number of times
the seventeen map signs were used by the public at 1.9
million times within the first year. This is not an insig-
nificant figure for a small prototype and points to the
demand for the right information at the right point.
The glimpses of improved confidence and changes
of behaviour uncovered by the prototype tests have
resulted in the scheme expansion to three significant
pilots. If successful and funding is available, the plan
106
idj 17(2), 2009, 91-108
is then to further expand the system to cover central
London and the Olympic zones by the 2012 launch date
for the games.
The principles we used would apply to most infor-
mation environments of this kind. They are still being
developed and refined, with the intention that in final
form they will form a solid bedrock across the Legible
London system.
Acknowledgements
A project of this complexity is the result of a large group of
people’s energies and contributions. Special mention goes to
Richard Simon, Sam Gullam, Dr. Gary McKay USNI, Ben Acornley,
Kasper de Graaf, James Lefrere, Simon Hillier, Manuela Zwing-
mann, John Alderson, Nick Durrant, Adrian Bell and Rob Waller.
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About the author
The founder of Applied Information Group in
2002, and previously MetaDesign in London in
1995, Tim Fendley is an information designer
and a leading member of the UK design com-
munity.
Tim’s work draws on cultural and commer-
cial experience in environmental, editorial, identity and interac-
tive design for Bosch, Graphics International, Gilbert & George,
Glasgow 1999, Orange and Lexus.
He was the lead designer of the ground breaking Bristol
Legible City Initiative, and is currently working on multimodal
information schemes for London, Leeds, Glasgow, Brighton,
Dublin and Vancouver.
He is the Faculty chair of the Institute of Urban Information
and has been appointed to the Board of advisors for the Helen
Hamlyn Centre at the Royal College of Art.
Contact
Applied Information Group
26-27 Great Sutton Street
Clerkenwell
London EC1V 0DS
United Kingdom
e-mail: tim@aiglondon.com
www.appliedinformationgroup.com
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