Tourist Information Booklets: A Survey of Attitudes

Clarifying your world

Tourist Information Booklets: A Survey of Attitudes Towards Their Size

Michail Semoglou Design Director [email protected]

Report

Stelios Zygouris Research Psychologist [email protected]

Vicky Filippidou Research Associate [email protected]

Abstract Nowadays tourist information booklets are often the sole means of communication with a tourist who is not familiar with the internet, does not use mobile apps and is most likely in a hurry. They inform, promote a city and ultimately aim to sell a destination area, an attraction or business. Unfortunately, research validation of their core design properties is still inadequate. This study assesses the effect of tourist information booklet sizes. It took place in the city of Thessaloniki and lasted two months; from early September till late October 2014. A consortium of experts selected 5 booklet sizes representing various layouts that are suitable for large scale printing. A sample of Greek adults rated the usability of each different size and also indicated which size they believe was the easiest to use. Older participants preferred larger-sized booklets while participants under the age of 30 selected the smallest available size. At the same time, a medium-sized booklet received the highest average usability rating. Results indicated that younger people gravitated towards smaller-sized booklets due to the portability offered by such a design. Older adults preferred larger-sized booklets as they allow for more information and a larger font size. It is evident that a certain length to width ratio is preferred by most participants. The study has succeeded in providing guidelines for the most suitable booklet size for each age group while at the same time identifying a universally acceptable size and aspect ratio.

Keywords Booklet size, Brochure, Functionality, Portability, Tourism, Usability

Acknowledgments The authors express their gratitude towards Evi Semoglou, Betty Durango and Angelina Baxevani for their help and support in this study.

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Tourist Information Booklets

Tourist information booklets are often the first source of information encountered by a tourist when navigating a new, chaotic and often disorientating cityscape. As the modern tourist has too many places to see and (predictably) too little time, these small publications can make or break a person’s experience of a city. Even the most interesting city on earth could become dull and tiresome if it fails to “communicate” with the tourist. As a product of collaboration among designers, publishers, municipal authorities and local businesses, such publications are ubiquitous and diverse, as well being restrained by contradicting demands on portability, legibility, clarity and comprehensiveness of information, low cost and ease of print. To apply standard research practices to the design of tourist information booklets sounds intriguing and at the same time intimidating. Existing publications have various aspects required to be addressed: the size, layout, amount and structure of information. Besides, there is inadequate research done by designers in this field so even the most basic questions remain unanswered. The issue becomes even more complicated because of the great heterogeneity of tourists. Nowadays, a city may be visited by tourists of various ethnicities, cultures, ages and socio-economic backgrounds. Furthermore, each tourist destination has its own style, history, and character all of which should be taken into account. We propose the study of each aspect of a tourist information booklet separately in order to establish a quantity of basic research before venturing to study their interplay. Obviously future research should focus on integration however at this point basic facts must be established. This study aims to assess the effect of a tourist information booklet’s size on adult travelers thus serving as a foundation for further research. More specifically we aim to assess how different age groups react to different booklet sizes and test the hypothesis that older people will prefer large size booklets while younger people will prefer smaller sizes. At the same time, we want to assess whether gender has any effect on booklet size choice. Methods A designer and publisher created 15 mock-ups of tourist information booklets, each featuring 8 pages and a fold-out front and back cover. The booklets were left intentionally blank in order to avoid the confounding effects any information such as text and images might have. We believe that the information contained in a booklet, as well as the presentation of this information, should be adapted to the size and layout of the booklet and this further compounded our decision not to include any information. If we chose to include information, we would have to either use the same information — shrunk to fit smaller booklet sizes — or use different information in each booklet. In either case, we would have added another confounding element which could skew the results of the study. A team consisting of designers, psychologists, social scientists, executive personnel and members of the general public chose 5 mock-ups out of the 15 created. Designs that were impractical to hold and operate or not suitable for large scale printing were rejected. The remaining designs were further reduced as designs that were too similar to other designs and were discarded as well. In the end, the 5 remaining designs (Fig. 1) represented a selection of designs that were usable and easy to mass produce while being significantly different from each other in size.

20.5 cm

19 cm

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13 cm

10 cm

11 cm

14 cm

18 cm

18 cm

9 cm

20 cm

Fig. 1

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Cover Symbol Tatami Ivory 150 gsm (Fedrigoni). Cover with flaps.

Inside Symbol Tatami Ivory 115 gsm (Fedrigoni).

The selected designs were presented to the participants of the study. Participants included 53 Greek adults (25 male and 28 female) aged between 21 and 80 years old ( μ = 39.62, S.D. = 14.659 ) . The participants were asked to rate the ease of use of each design on a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 represented “difficult to use” and 5 represented “very easy to use.” They were also asked to choose the design they considered the easiest to use. Participants were reminded that the study focuses on the ease of use of booklets of different shapes and sizes as far as size and shape are concerned. They were asked not to focus on things such as what information would be included or how big the text were on each size. They were informed that the information contained as well as the text size would be adapted to each different size in order to be legible if these booklets contained information. Results Design D received the highest average rating while Design A was chosen as the easiest to use more often than any other design (see Table 1). There were no significant differences between male and female participants (see Tables 2 and 3) while differences were observed between different age groups. Participants under the age of 30 awarded the highest average rating to Design A which was also the design that was chosen as easiest to use more often than any other design (see Table 4). Similar results were obtained for the group of participants aged between 30 and 49 years old (see Table 5). The group of participants aged 50 years old or more awarded the highest average rating to Design D while the designs chosen more often were Design D and Design E as each of the two designs received the same number of votes (see Table 6).

Table 1 Rating and choice of designs.

Standard Deviation (S.D.)

μ

N

Rating of Designs

1.618 1.408 0.993 1.203 1.419

3.36 2.43 3.23 3.49 2.40

53 53 53 53 53

A B C D E

%

N

Choice of Design (easiest to use)

39.60 11.30 9.40 24.50 15.10

21 6 5 13 8

prefer A prefer B prefer C prefer D prefer E

21 participants prefer Design A.

39.60%

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Table 2 Rating and choice of designs. Male participants.

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μ

N

Rating of Designs

1.503 1.393 0.980 1.114 1.443

3.52 2.24 3.28 3.64 2.40

25 25 25 25 25

A B C D E

%

N


40.00 12.00 8.00 28.00 12.00

10 3 2 7 3



μ

N

Rating of Designs

1.729 1.423 1.020 1.283 1.423

3.21 2.61 3.18 3.36 2.39

28 28 28 28 28

A B C D E

%

N


39.30 10.70 10.70 21.40 17.90

11 3 3 6 5



μ

N

Rating of Designs

1.423 1.383 0.979 1.247 1.079

3.56 2.83 3.39 3.44 2.11

18 18 18 18 18

A B C D E

%

N


50.00 12.50 8.30 16.70 12.50

12 3 2 4 3



40%

Table 3 Rating and choice of designs. Female participants.


39.30%

Table 4 Rating and choice of designs. Participants aged 29 years old and less.



50%

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Table 5 Rating and choice of designs. Participants aged between 30 and 49 years old.

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μ

N

Rating of Designs

1.637 1.503 1.049 1.103 1.465

3.63 2.46 3.17 3.46 2.33

24 24 24 24 24

A B C D E

%

N


50.00 12.50 8.30 16.70 12.50

12 3 2 4 3



μ

N

Rating of Designs

1.695 1.009 0.944 1.433 1.732

2.45 1.73 3.09 3.64 3.00

11 11 11 11 11

A B C D E

%

N


18.20 0.00 9.10 36.40 36.40

2 0 1 4 4

prefer A no-one prefers B prefers C prefer D prefer E


50%

Table 6 Rating and choice of designs. Participants aged 50 years old or more.

4 participants prefer Design D and 4 participants prefer Design E.

36.40%


36.40%

Discussion Our study detected differences among different age groups concerning booklet size. As hypothesized, older people preferred larger-sized booklets while younger people preferred smaller-sized booklets. Interestingly people aged between 30 and 49 years old exhibited an even greater preference for small-sized booklets compared to persons younger than 30 years old. As evident from comments made by the participants, younger people were concerned about portability and preferred booklets that were easier to carry in a purse, bag or pocket while older people preferred bigger booklets as they could allow for more information or larger text size. It is worth noting that no significant differences were found in the preferences of male and female participants and, therefore, the role of gender in booklet size choice seems negligible. An important finding of this study is that the design that was more often chosen as easiest to use ( Design A ) was not the design that received the highest average score. Indeed, Design A had a polarizing effect on participants as it often received extreme scores either negative or positive. Obviously it received low ratings from older participants. Since Design A was the smallest of the designs shown to participants this polarizing effect was expected

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up to a point. At the same time, Design D was widely accepted and rarely received low scores even if it was not the design most often chosen as easiest to use. Interestingly, Designs A and D shared the same ratio of length to width, therefore, indicating a clear preference towards a booklet shape if not size. When it comes to choosing a design, a client wishing to commission tourist information booklets could select the one that is best suited to its target audience. When it is clear that booklets target an audience that is younger than 50 years old, Design A could be chosen as its small size appeals to the target audience and may help reduce cost in bulk printing. At the same time when a client wants to target a wider audience or is unsure about the demographics of its target group, Design D presents a widely accepted choice while not being too big and thus incurring a significant rise in printing and distribution costs. Conclusion This study represents the first step in establishing research-based guidelines for the design of tourist information booklets. The results obtained offer some basic guidelines allowing a client to collaborate with a design firm in selecting the size that would better suit its intended audience. At the same time, there is a strong indication that regardless of size booklets with a length to width ratio of 2:1 are universally preferred. The study has some limitations: mainly small sample size and the lack of further information concerning the participants such as education, income, traveling experience and familiarity with tourist information booklets. Furthermore, the study was conducted on a sample of Greek older adults and, therefore, it may not be representative of adults from other countries. Since a length to width ratio of 2:1 has been found to be universally preferred for tourist information booklets, future studies should focus on examining the attitudes of travelers towards booklets with this length to width ratio in different sizes. Meanwhile, we hope that this study will encourage designers to explore the effect of all aspects of tourist information booklet design. In the future, the establishment of research-based guidelines for these publications could lead to more efficient booklets, happier tourists and increased revenue for everybody involved in the tourism and hospitality industry.

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Getz, D., & Sailor, L. (1994). Design of destination and attraction-specific brochures. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 2 (2 – 3), 111 – 131. http://doi.org/10.1300/ J073v02n02_08

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