[OSM-talk] OSM on The Reg

[Hurricane McEwen]

I agree with Gert on the fact that 'the concept is good for geeks' but  
it IS time to create a user interface for the rest of the world. I  
have held a few mapping parties, trying to get more hikers, cyclists,  
retired folk who love maps, involved with OSM but with the barrier  
that OSM isn't user friendly for these folks.

One small example on Potlatch would be the light grey on white  
background-- for most, this gives the look of 'inactive'. Also, the  
icons are small and it's not 'obvious' that one must click on the car  
icon to change it to a person, to a boat (etc.) to change to type of  
feature you are tagging.

Yes! There is the wiki and it is very, very helpful... but also  
remember that the average attention span is about 2.2 seconds, and if  
it isn't seriously simple, we lose people...

There's more from where this comes... and I'd be happy to pass it on  
to the OSM community or to the appropriate person! I would love to be  
involved with helping build a great 'user friendly' editor for the  
'rest of the world' :)

Hurricane






Hurricane McEwen
Central Mountain Community Ambassador
hurricane at cloudmade.com
skype: hurricanecloudmade
twitter: hurricanemcewen



On Feb 11, 2009, at 5:31 AM, Richard Fairhurst wrote:

>
> Gert Gremmen wrote:
>> The current concept is good for geeks , like you and me,
>> and people that are really interested. The geeks are on-board
>> (> 10000). Now it's time to create a user interface for the rest
>> of the world.
>
> Yes, I agree absolutely (wow, Gert and I agree on something :) ).
>
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/dev/2008-July/010994.html
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk/2008-November/ 
> 031778.html
>
>> Kenneth:
>>> does *any* mapping app have an option like 'add road'?
>> Do you know any mapping application accessible for
>> everyone having internet ???
>
> Yes on both counts: Google MapMaker.
>
> I personally don't want to write the editing interface that the rest  
> of the
> world uses, and it's slightly insane that somehow I've ended up  
> doing so
> (or, at least, what we have so far) - I mean, I'm not even a  
> programmer, I'm
> a magazine editor with not a whole lot of free time. If future- 
> Potlatch were
> to become _an_ editor available on the main site rather than _the_  
> editor,
> I'd be very happy.
>
> Of course, CloudMade might already be working on this - can anyone  
> from CM
> confirm/otherwise? Would help the rest of us in knowing what to do  
> next.
>
> cheers
> Richard
> -- 
> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/OSM-on-The-Reg-tp21951170p21953743.html
> Sent from the OpenStreetMap - General mailing list archive at  
> Nabble.com.
>
>
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Hurricane McEwen
Central Mountain Community Ambassador
hurricane at cloudmade.com
skype: hurricanecloudmade
twitter: hurricanemcewen



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