Near-ubiquitous Internet access with widely available user-friendly Web tools and software packages for map creation have allowed an increasing number of digitally savvy map makers, including prosumers, to communicate with other people using mashup maps for some years. This article presents an empirical study that looks at the question of how prosumers and cartographers use the graphical variables developed by Jacques Bertin in 1967 for cartographic communication. The findings suggest that both prosumers and trained cartographers mainly use the graphical variables colour hue and shape. Trained cartographers additionally use the graphical variables size and colour value to represent ordinal, nominal, and numerical data. The persistence of this difference speaks to the continued importance of cartographic training for effective cartographic communication.
展开▼
