Questionnaire about the map of the WOC-Sprint in Västeras, Sweden 2004
16 January 2005

                                                                                            very good  good     0      poor  very poor no answer
 1 How was the legibility of the light brown for path/road system in forest areas?             13      11       4       2        1               31    81,9
 2 How was the legibility of the light brown for the path/road system in the no-forest 	       15       9       5       2                        31    85,2
   areas?
 3 How well did you recognize the difference between impassable and passable fences?            8      15       6       2                        31    80,0
 4 Were you satisfied with the representation of the small paths                                3      16       6       5        1               31    72,3
   (thin black dashed lines)?
 5 How was the legibility of the unpaved footpaths on the map (dashed double lines              b       8      11       6        5        1      31    55,3
   with a light brown fill)?
 6 What did you think about the contour interval?                                               6      18       5       2                        31    79,4
 7 There were no index contours on the map (a thicker line for every 5th contour).             13      11       5                2               31    80,0
   What did you think about that?
 8 How do you like the rule that impassable walls, fences etc. are forbidden to pass?          15       5       5       1        5               31    72,9
                                                                                               YES              NO
 9 Did you mix up the track symbol (thin black dashed line) with a rocky feature                2              29                                31     6,5
   (e.g. cliff)?
10 Were you able to clearly recognize forbidden areas during the competition?                  25               6                                31    80,6
11 Should something have been removed from the map?                                            1              30                                31     3,2
12 Should something have been added to the map? (If yes, you can comment it below)              5              26                                31    16,1
13 Did you make any mistakes because of bad map legibility?                                     6              24                                30    20,0
14 Did you like the line widths in general?                                                    27               3                                30    90,0
15 Is it a problem that some symbols of the sprint maps are different from the                  9              22                                31    29,0
   traditional foot-o symbols?
16 Would you prefer more generalisation (fewer details on the map)?                             1              30                                31     3,2
17 Would you prefer one scale for sprint maps (meaning that all sprint maps would be the       11              20                                31    35,5
   same scale, currently, event organisers can choose between 1:4000 and 1:5000)?
18 Did you have any problems with the scale 1:5000?                                                            31                          
CZE 3
EST 2
ESP 2
FIN 2
FRA 2
ISR 1
LIT 1
NOR 3
SUI 6
SWE 5
USA 2
XXX 2 (not identifiable, due of the the email address)


Comments


FRA1: Seemed fine to me.

SWE5: "The small paths were to thin on the map I think, could have been a thicker line.
The map in general was quite good, one thing that was very hard was to know when something was a track marked on the map, and when it wasn’t on the map. I think there could have been 2 grades for small tracks, so some more of those tracks could have been shown. Now it was a little unfair, some of the straighter route choices had more tracks to run on, and the people who chose to run a little more around on the tracks had difficulty distinguishing what was a track and what wasn’t."

SWE2: "I prefer scale of 1:4000.
By the current symbol of light brown I find it difficult to discriminate between asphalt roads, gravel roads, major tracks and illuminated tracks on the map. The symbols from the traditional foot-o are more suitable:
Asphalt: Light brown, variable width black.
Gravel roads: black continous line.
Major tracks: Black dashed line.
Illuminated tracks: Black dashed line with yellow borders."

SWE1: "The symbols for small forest tracks and footpaths are not optimal. From the map the largest difference seems to be between unpaved footpaths and small forest tracks, but in the terrain the similarity between those is large while the difference between paved and unpaved footpaths is relatively clear (which it is not on the map). Further, I find the Nordic symbol for “lysloipe”, “elljussp?r”, “illuminated footpath” very useful, but maybe that’s only since I’m used to it since so many years."

NOR2: "Unpaved footpaths in forest areas should have been drawn as paths (black dashed lines). This was confusing. Usually, dashed double lines with a light brown fill means paved area. Sometimes during WOC this meant wet and muddy paths. Even if the runners recognized this during model event, during competition the main experiences from former preparations and ISSOM-studying will be decisive of the runner’s choices.
Regarding the representation of small paths: always difficult for the map drawer to decide what paths to be on the map in this kind of areas. Some of those running a bit left on the second part of leg 2 (W course) were confused by the path system."

LIT1: "1-2. The light brown (30%, I think) in all parts in WOC2004 is suitable, but if were more urban area in WOC2004, two brown fill-ins – light and dark - shall be used. For example, the light brown fill-in was good in WOC2004. If we will use the dark brown fill-in in Rapperswill, the contrast between paved area and buildings were bad. I think, two combinations - 20%-light brown (but not lighter!) and 30%-dark brown are suitable. Very light brown (<20%) is very similar to white forest.
7. The index contour on the map (a thicker line for every 5th contour) is really not necessary. The importance of index contour in ISSOM is low. It can lead a runner into error, when he/she recognizing impassable and passable objects.
12. I want to add to the map benches (smal grey dash).
17. The scale 1:5000 is really enough in non-urban areas in all cases, but in complex urban areas the scale 1:4000 is preferable."

XXX1: "The path system used in WOC2004 was not very good to my opinion, as many times you could not know what size of path to expect from the map – sometimes paths were marked with brown and in the terrain were quite small as to the point where we missed them because we were looking for a big and wide path as well as some cases were a path marked with the thin black dashed line and the path was actually quite big. A second problem was the legibility of the dashed black line – it was so fine that at fast sprint running it was in many cases not noticeable and only paths with brown were used and as so lead to route choice mistakes.
I believe the old system of different sized paths was much better and easier to read (as used in normal maps).
Regarding the issue of forbidden to cross symbols like high walls and so on, I believe that if there is a place the should not be crossed it should be marked clearly and not the way it is now were it is very difficult to distinct between the crossable and un-crossable symbols and leads to orienteering mistakes that are because of map and not man."

FRA2: "Main problem for me in WOC Sprint 2004 was the big difference between Model event map and Competition map in rocky ground representation. In model event, all rocky and stony ground were very slow. In competition map, it was faster, even if same symbol was used in map. Model map have to be really relevant for tactics option for competitors."

XXX2: "The winning times was a bit too long, both in the classification races and in the final:"

EST1: "I had problems with some smaller path which weren´t on the map. And as usualy at these kind of terrains (lot of rocks and stones), it´s hard to understand the size of socks and stones, which are/aren´t on the map and terrain."