Module 6 - Information Design In Practice

Why does it have to be this difficult?

I recently wanted to plan a trip to New York City for the holidays to go see the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center. Naturally I wasn't planning on driving so I stopped by the train station to pick up the train schedule. Now my town train station house is very small and I have not visited it in many years so the first thing I was thinking that there had to be a nice big sign or display that held the train schedule pamphlets. Below are two photos of the inside of the station house:





Now there are a lot of signs that were hung that I was not interested in and a lot of public billboards posted, but I couldn't find the train schedules. I finally found them, after a few wasted minutes of reading some of the public billboards, in the corner with no sign to bring attention to them whatsoever. There was no sense of way-finding, no attention to something so important. A simple sign that I have created below would be a simple solution that can bring attention to the pamphlets.




This is a simple use of Weight and Scale of typography to attract attention to the large important words. "Here is the Long Island Rail Road Train Schedules" The arrows add a sense of graphic element and way-finding to direct people to the actual pamphlet. Alteration of the color of the sign or the font can add an eye catching context to the sign if black and white isn't so "black and white."

Now, onto the god awful mess that is the train schedule pamphlet.

 

 

This is the cover of the pamphlet. Green highlights on the white paper accent the large branch line and the map of all the stations on that line is right on the cover for an easy summary of the stops along the way.





 

HOWEVER, the following pictures show you just how deceiving this pamphlet really is. I have used our Information Design Workbook textbook as a reference of size.

This is the inside of the pamphlet. There are rows upon rows upon columns upon columns of times, peak, off peak, AM, PM, Holiday, etc. and here's the kicker....this is just the front...there is a back as well, it is the photo below. 

I cannot fathom the idea of someone sitting here and trying to decipher all this craziness. I just want to be able to find out when the train is arriving at my train station and what time it will arrive at Penn Station, as well as the return trip times. The following picture is a highlighted view of this information I am looking for after spending a good 15 minutes figuring out all these subtle little notes and symbols and meanings all over the place.





So I have come to the realization that there needs to be a redesign of this pamphlet. The reason I say this is for several reasons. Most people that ride the train are usually in a hurry to get where they need to be and do not have the time to sit there are decipher the Da Vinci code that is this pamphlet. The overall design is inefficient to deliver information. There is just so much information that you lose the interests and focus of the viewer.


Now with a little thought and inspiration from the front cover of our Information Design Workbook, I put together a sample, or wire frame if you will, of just a sample of the information that I was looking for. Utilizing Icons with large typography to create a focal point on our time table, I have drawn attention to the track or branch line which can be scanned quickly based on your current location.





Arrows give a sense of direction to the viewer and help them locate the direction of travel. If I am in Penn Station and want to travel back home to Wantagh Station, I would need to travel East. Using larger and weighted typography once again to accent the direction for the table draws focus to where it needs to be, in my case the Eastbound train schedule. From here I can figure out what train to take based off of what time I plan on heading home.


This is just a rough wire frame and would need a lot of work as far as testing to see if it is user friendly, and does what it is intended to do, deliver the most important information efficiently.

The structure of the information is important as well. I have noticed in the original pamphlet there is a table of times, then helpful contact numbers, then a legend of important symbols, then on the back more tables of times. This type of design creates frustration and doesn't have any type of hierarchy.