. . . . . . . . "Metro Map Colour-Coding: Effect on Usability in Route Tracing"^^ . . . . "10871" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "2018-05-17" . . . "Does the choice of colour-coding scheme affect the usability of metro\r\nmaps, as measured by the accuracy and speed of navigation? Using colour to\r\ndifferentiate lines or services in maps of metro rail networks has been a common\r\npractice around the world for many decades. Broadly speaking, there are two\r\nbasic schemes: \u2018route colouring\u2019, in which each end-to-end route has a distinct\r\ncolour, and \u2018trunk colouring\u2019, in which each major trunk has a distinct colour,\r\nand the individual routes inherit the colour of the main trunk that they run along.\r\nA third, intermediate scheme is \u2018shaded colouring\u2019, in which each trunk has a\r\ndistinct colour, and each route has a distinct shade of that colour. In this study,\r\n285 volunteers in the US were randomised to these three colour-coding schemes\r\nand performed seventeen navigational tasks. Each task involved tracing a route\r\nin the New York City subway map. Overall, we found that route colouring was\r\nsignificantly more accurate than the trunk- and shaded-colouring schemes. A\r\nplanned subset analysis, however, revealed major differences between specific\r\nnavigational hazards: route colouring performed better only against certain navigational\r\nhazards; trunk colouring performed best against one hazard; and other\r\nhazards showed no effect of colour coding. Route colouring was significantly\r\nfaster only in one subset."^^ . . . . . . . .