Search: An Approach to Cartographic Type Legibility Measurement

Abstract

It is proposed that a new task be selected for measuring the effect of type variation in cartographic context, and that since every name on a map must be found before it can be processed further, "search" would be such a meaningful task. From this, a definition of cartographic legibility would be held to include the notion, "the speed with which the map can be searched." Some literature is cited to show the utility of the search task in general, and various considerations which would restrict its use in map research context are also outlined.