Developing a set of generic principles that underlie good design practice guidelines in tactile cartography, regardless of production technique, remains an elusive goal. While tactile design guidelines exist, with the odd exception, they are rarely comprehensive or arranged in a sufficiently schematic way that allows users to follow a step-by-step approach to design. Even fewer guidelines relate to maps exclusively. It is also rare for design recommendations to be underpinned by theoretical or practical evidence as neither is often used as the basis for making a claim.
This paper proposes to address these oversights by presenting a new methodological approach for deriving tactile map design principles from existing guideline sources. Current guidelines were evaluated to assess the extent to which they were grounded in previous research on cartographic visualization, tactile perception or non-visual spatial cognition; resulted from practice or user feedback; were recommended on the basis of expert knowledge; or exist as research questions still to be tested. Further analysis using both qualitative and data mining techniques formed the basis for condensing claims into more generic tactile map design rules which could then be organized in an easy to use framework that draws on established criteria for visual cartographic design, particularly symbol categorizations and map generalization. Design statements were also grouped according to their potential usefulness. Some selected results; examples of the type of design principles emerging from the process described will be presented.
Prior knowledge of topic assumed: Low
Contains advanced technical content: No
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