Recreation and wilderness areas are frequented by millions of visitors each year. These environments are charged with protection and preservation of resources while supporting visitor involvement and enjoyment. Given these potentially competing demands, the design of visitor communications is critical. Visitor communications should be consistent with users’cognitive capabilities and expectations about the order in which information will be presented. This study employed a cognitive elicitation method to capture shared schemas among participants who examined information communicated through a small panel system in a national park. Quantitativeand qualitativeresults support theexistenceof common schemas for information order. Implications and further methods to support performance-based validation arediscussed.
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