[Talk-GB] New map style

[jonathan]

+1

http://bigfatfrog67.me

On 01/11/2015 16:53, Mark Goodge wrote:
> On 01/11/2015 09:46, Stuart Reynolds wrote:
>> I don't like it for the simple reason that I think it will fail to
>> win over new Uk users. There are plenty of people who just want to
>> use default tiles to show a location on - sports pitch, scout hall,
>> whatever - and those people will inevitably go to Google. Sure, we
>> understand the differences between a map and data, but we need to
>> engage first and then draw them into making active improvements. And
>> this won't do that because it is so contrary to people's experience.
>
> I agree. I think that meeting ordinary, non-map-geek (and 
> non-technical) users' expectations is important.
>
> It used to be the case that both Google and Bing used local mapping 
> conventions for their colours. So, for example, in the UK, motorways 
> were blue, while primary routes were green, while in France  toll 
> autoroutes were green and non-toll autoroutes were red. Those colours 
> may be arbitrary, but they were well-established. But both Google and 
> Bing decided to stop following local conventions and impose a single, 
> global style based on a US-style classification of roads.
>
> That really doesn't work very well. In particular, it breaks really 
> badly for Google, because their classification system doesn't map onto 
> UK usage. You end up with stupidities such as slip roads at junctions 
> being coloured differently to the roads they serve, for example, and 
> an inability to distinguish between A roads and unclassified roads 
> based simply on colour (and width of a line really isn't good enough, 
> particularly at overview levels).
>
> When Google made that change, therefore, it provided an excellent 
> opportunity to evangelise for OpenStreetMap, precisely because OSM 
> hadn't made the same mistake.
>
> Now, I appreciate that OSM had the opposite problem, in that it 
> imposed a UK-style colour scheme on the rest of the world (due to the 
> lack of ability for local colour schemes). So something did need to be 
> done about that. But I am not at all convinced that the right thing 
> has been done about it.
>
> To begin with, I find myself agreeing with the comments made by others 
> (possibly more intemperately, but no less valid for all that) that 
> creating a system to allow different countries to use different colour 
> schemes (like the old Google and Bing did) would have been a better 
> option than simply changing the colours. But, assuming that, for 
> whatever reason, that's impractical and the colours did need to be 
> changed, I still think that the new colours are a long way short of 
> ideal.
>
> Specifically, I think that white is the wrong colour for anything 
> other than an urban street or a farm track. It's too indistinguishable 
> from the background and makes it hard to get a visual overview of the 
> local road network. I have a feeling that this choice may have been 
> driven by mappers who work primarily in urban areas, where white does 
> work. But for rural roads, it just plain doesn't.
>
> At the other end of the scale, I think that the three shades of 
> red/orange used for motorways and A roads are too similar. While they 
> are different enough to be distinguishable when placed next to each 
> other, the colours shouldn't need the presence of a comparator to be 
> identifiable. If you see a section of road on its own with no 
> surrounding context (and, again, this is more of an issue for mid-zoom 
> levels in rural areas), you have to make a conscious effort to think 
> about the colour to be sure whether it's a trunk or non-trunk A road, 
> or a trunk road or a motorway.
>
> That's bad UI. The colours should be different enough that if you see 
> a line of just one colour on an otherwise entirely featurless 
> background, it is immediately obvious (to someone who knows the 
> colours) what category of road it is. I'm not intrinsically wedded to 
> the idea that motorways must be blue, or that trunk roads must be 
> green. But I am certain that whatever colours are chosen should be 
> chosen with clarity in mind.
>
> Mark
>
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