We have the context of how close places are to each other, what countries the cities are in
There are no country names, only the names of the capital cities, so if what you say is true, the user is required first to know
that the cities are in fact capitals
which countries the cities are the capitals of
the general size of Europe as whole to know distance between cities
Especially point one and two are not common knowledge. Most Europeans would not know that Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia, for instance. It could be easily fixed by changing “cities” to “capitals” in the legend. But I would still argue that the low amount of data does not warrant the map, if the purpose is to compare across cities.
Sidenote: What scholars and textbooks do you use for theory in the US?
I don’t remember the authors of my textbook, but it was called something like principles of cartography and map design. We didn’t learn the names of any particular scholars.
We spent a lot of time learning about color choices, labelling, balance, etc.
We also learned that while some things are conventions in cartography, some things are just a matter of taste.
Without being the designer of this map, I can only speak to how I read the map. First of all, when you’re talking about cities, those are inherently geographical, so it makes sense to have them in a map rather than only in a list.
To me, knowing what countries the cities are in or if the city is a capital or not is not that interesting. If that was important data to convey, then you might want to design the map differently.
The interesting thing to me is seeing how much of the income goes towards rent, comparatively. Like, whoa, Lisbon is much worse than the other places that are nearby. Pie charts do well conveying rough percentages, and are relatively easy to design in software. So for me, I like this map, but I get why you would prefer the bar version that you shared in your textbook.
You could argue and I would agree that if lots of people are turned off by pie charts, then the map would be less offensive and more effective if it used a different method of visualization that did not distract from the data it is conveying.
Honestly, what probably bothers me the most about this map is its dumb projection.
There are no country names, only the names of the capital cities, so if what you say is true, the user is required first to know
Especially point one and two are not common knowledge. Most Europeans would not know that Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia, for instance. It could be easily fixed by changing “cities” to “capitals” in the legend. But I would still argue that the low amount of data does not warrant the map, if the purpose is to compare across cities.
Sidenote: What scholars and textbooks do you use for theory in the US?
I don’t remember the authors of my textbook, but it was called something like principles of cartography and map design. We didn’t learn the names of any particular scholars.
We spent a lot of time learning about color choices, labelling, balance, etc.
We also learned that while some things are conventions in cartography, some things are just a matter of taste.
Without being the designer of this map, I can only speak to how I read the map. First of all, when you’re talking about cities, those are inherently geographical, so it makes sense to have them in a map rather than only in a list.
To me, knowing what countries the cities are in or if the city is a capital or not is not that interesting. If that was important data to convey, then you might want to design the map differently.
The interesting thing to me is seeing how much of the income goes towards rent, comparatively. Like, whoa, Lisbon is much worse than the other places that are nearby. Pie charts do well conveying rough percentages, and are relatively easy to design in software. So for me, I like this map, but I get why you would prefer the bar version that you shared in your textbook.
You could argue and I would agree that if lots of people are turned off by pie charts, then the map would be less offensive and more effective if it used a different method of visualization that did not distract from the data it is conveying.
Honestly, what probably bothers me the most about this map is its dumb projection.