The U.S.National Park Service produces millions of maps each year for distribution to visitors to the national parks. The maps are aimed at orienting visitors to the unfamiliar surroundings and also to provide information about the various facilities available in the parks. The thesis mainly evaluates the readability of the national park map. The maps of the 13 national parks of the Rocky Mountain Region are considered for the study. The maps are diverse, varying from a simple representation of points of interest along the major roads in some park folders, to continuous surface information in multicolour productions.
Some parks also use monochrome or duochrome versions of the multicolour map.
Three maps, representing the simple park folders, the more complex park folders, and its duochrome version, are evaluated. The study used a task-oriented approach where voluntary subjects answered a questionnaire developed for the purposes of evaluation. The tasks included locating, verifying, and interpreting the map symbols. The questionnaire also elicited reader opinions on the appearances and information content of the maps. The results showed that the overall impressions of the park maps were favourable.