Critique this map with many labeled points. Is there a better way to do this?

Question

This is the centerfold map in a booklet printed for the homeless. The numbers represent the page number that the information on each service provider is also found. We are limited to black and green for two color printing. It looks too busy and we would love other ideas on how do label a map like this. Thoughts?

Answer 1

We need to understand how a user will utilize this map. Will a person be looking up a place by name (in which case the alphabetized list makes sense) or by location (in which case everything should be sorted by number) or some other way (maybe by categorization?)

I'd also ask some questions:

• is there significance between black roads and green roads?
• is knowing relative location on a map more or less important than knowing exact addresses?
• are roads the best landmarks for this particular region?
• can you use a larger piece of paper? Or split the map into two separate centerfolds?
• is there significance to the current splitting of the list into 3 groups?
• is there significance to the fact that some locations are a single number, while others are a number+letter?

Answer 2

Your map is busy for three reasons: you have too many gray lines which clutter up the background, your labels are crowding all the white space, and you are "zoomed out" too far.

• Take out every road or transit line which isn't necessary. That will reduce some of the line density.
• Remove the labels from this map. Put them on the other side of the paper, on a foldout panel, or another page altogether.
• Once you remove the labels, you will have more white space in your live area, and you can make your actual map larger. This will increase the space between your critical roads/transit lines, which will help it look less cluttered.

Answer 3

Are those homeless people able to easily navigate through numbers and other encoding?

I propose to replace these solid labels+numbers (that now overlap the actual distinguishable location on a map) with simple points and lines leading out of there to each item in the list:

And list items, in their turn, are to be organized: a) into category groups; or even better: b) in the way that makes the best (neat, rhythmic) composition of the lines leading to a map point.