maps are fun

why not on the web?Maps can be fun, and everyone likes finding treasure. I’m here to talk about maps on the web. They aren’t nearly fun enough yet, but we can do better with a little more thought :)

image: http://goolishtech.com/sitemap.aspx

back in the day...

Maps have been on the web for a while. For a long time we had our static maps. Images. Show some dots and lines, peer at them to see if you know where something is. If you’re lucky you might have a big view and a small view.

image: http://www.biosecurity.govt.nz/pest-and-disease-response/pests-and-diseases-watchlist/didymosphenia-geminata/where-is-it

slippy!

So, then came the slippy map. Google pioneered this. Suddenly we have fast, responsive maps. We can drag around, zoom in and out, and actually show MORE detail than we can on a paper map, because we have different levels of detail. And we can put interactive points onto the map.

image: http://maps.google.co.nz/

clever photos

Then we moved onto clever photos. Anyone not looked up satellite photos of their house in a web map? Seen people walking down the Strip in Las Vegas? Microsoft introduced this cool thing called “birds eye” which are perspective views, we can even spin around and peer at the Statue of Liberty from behind.

image: http://maps.live.com/

3D worldsAnd now we can even have 3D worlds in the browser. For Windows users, Google has a recently released a browser-based Google Earth. But the current “standard” is our Google or Virtual Earth map, we see them popping up everywhere.

image: http://thematicmapping.org/

see an addressSo one thing we do with web maps is to visualise an address. Mukuna helpfully shows us where the Kings Arms is. “Off Upper Queen Street, no worries, I know how to get there”. Or “whoa, didn’t realise it was out in the boonies, better leave myself an hour”. This works great.

image: http://www.mukuna.co.nz/

find something

The other case is to find something. We’re going to look for somewhere to live. Which I happen to be doing at the moment. What a pain in the ass. But I’ll see if I can pick on all the NZ websites in one go :)

image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cookwood/2655481117/

1. the search

First step, define your search. Hmm, I know half of Auckland likes to call themselves “Mount Eden”, so I better put *that* in my suburb list. Where the hell is “Oranga”? Where are the options for “within 30 minutes walk from work” or “has a cafe nearby” or “is close to a bus stop”?

image: http://www.barfoots.co.nz/

2. the listStep two, “the list”. How helpful, there’s addresses! Like i know where “Sojak Place” is, or where along Mt Albert Road number 311a is… I am not a real estate agent or a taxi driver or a courier. So I need a bloody map beside me anyway!

image: http://www.harcourts.co.nz/

3. the details

Ah yes, the detail page. lots of text, pictures, and ooh! look! a map! with one point on. NOW i can see that its down the bottom of a giant big hill, but near a park. Problem is, I’m constantly flicking between here and the list again, just to see WHERE THEY ARE.

image: http://www.trademe.co.nz/

F A I L

The whole experience? FAIL. I need a piece of paper and a pen and a paper map just to navigate the damn website and achieve what its supposedly there for?! The map is much more powerful than treating it as “a clever photo”, which is what we’re doing on those detail pages.

image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Train_wreck_at_Montparnasse_1895.jpg

maps as helpersThe first step in our journey of enlightenment is to to take our maps from being a glorified photo to actually helping us. I shouldn’t need a paper map beside me or in another tab. The website can help me here.

image: http://flickr.com/photos/dhinson/522479739/

scratchpadsEveryone creates notes when they’re on a finding expedition. Think the TradeMe watchlist. We need that. There is absolutely NO NEED to require the user to register or login in order to make a scratchpad. And make it easy to save, share, and send around.

image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cabinet/53737767/

my maps

Google My Maps is a spatial scratchpad. Great for simple applications (I’ve built one for my house-hunting), but imagine how much better it could work if you have something similar just for your app, tying in all the information nicely? The tools are all there...

image: http://maps.google.co.nz/

maps are made for walking

So make sure you can print out the scratchpad, with a map! So people can use it to FIND the places when they get around to actually going out there in the real world. If you need to look up places on another map: FAIL.

image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bods/82681534/

maps as interfaceThe second step in our journey of enlightenment is to look at offering maps as the interface. Rather than search + list + detail & repeat, can we use a map to make that easier? Can we reduce the number of back-and-forth steps, and reduce the amount of information the user is trying to juggle in their head?

image: One Track Mind

live filteringThese guys in the UK have some cool stuff. Slide the sliders and set your travel time and price range, and instantly see where are the places to look. 2 minutes outside the “Epsom” boundary won’t bother me if its a nice place! Show me what matches, but show me stuff that nearly matches too. I can be flexible, try to make your website that way too.

image: http://www.mysociety.org/2007/more-travel-maps/

useful additions

Lets add other useful stuff onto our map. What about bus routes, shops, cafes, supermarkets, school zones? Whatever I need to help me make the right decision. We can even use the map engines to give us walking and driving times.

image: One Track Mind

move on from lists!

Lists are great. But not for inherently spatial information. They don’t help me with what I’m trying to do! The technology is all there to use maps as interfaces, we just need the interaction and user experience designers to step up to some new challenges.

image: http://flickr.com/photos/stevenh/132854741/

So what to take out of this? Nearly everything has a place, and lots of problems have a spatial context. Lets see if we can start thinking about how maps on the web can really help people navigate content or solve problems, not just act as eye candy.

image: http://flickr.com/photos/stuttermonkey/41579849/