Uploaded on 2014-10-13 by amacphee

[1]: https://edxuploads.s3.amazonaws.com/14132355211952505.jpg Some background information: Hackney Central is one of the town centres of Hackney (pop. 230,000), which is a borough (local government unit) within London (pop. 8.3 million), UK. What is visible? The most obvious source of visible information is the Legible London wayfinding sign in the foreground. This is a fairly new endeavour in London, based on similar exercises in Amsterdam, I believe. The sign is particularly helpful because the map is oriented so that up is the direction you're looking (whereas traditional maps have up as north). Turns out most people find that makes it easier to find where they need to go. This gives a layout of Hackney Central, sets it in context with the larger area, and points out local areas and buildings of interest. What else do we have? To the left, partially obscured, a sign to the light rail station. In the centre, a combined recycling and waste bin. The the right, a bus stop to a central location (Tottenham Court Road, very near a large shopping district). A pedestrian crossing with barriers. A building which looks condemned (it's not - nearby builders broke the foundation by accident, and the occupants of this building had to be evacuated), but used to use a busy Turkish restaurant. The main building to the right is the warehouse section of a Marks & Spencers, a sort of department store. No windows facing the street. White hoardings through the centre cover building works (a hotel, primarily). A lamp-sign (purple) encourages motorists to watch out for pedestrians. The buildings are almost uniformly 4-5 stories high and built from brick. The road is fairly busy. What is invisible? There is a lot implied here, but I'll focus on two elements. The first element is pedestrian presence and use. The presence of the wayfinding sign and the waste/recycling bin suggests that there are large numbers of pedestrians, not all of whom are regulars to this station. The cityAM (a morning newspaper) news-stand suggests that a fair number are morning commuters, either leaving or arriving for work. The station is, in fact, very busy and this sign is tourists' first port of call in terms of orienting themselves. The second element is around cycling. The busy street, mixed modes of travel and lamp-post sign all suggest that cycling accidents are fairly commonplace around this area. It's fairly easy to see why that might be - no dedicated cycle lanes, somewhat confusing traffic lanes, mixed traffic (cars and buses) and an at times heavy pedestrian presence do all lead to more cycling accidents. Without more data (particularly statistical data), it would be difficult to go deeper into what this invisible information means or to confirm that my observations are correct.