[OSM-talk] Move the Map

[Tom Chance]

On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:07:45 +0000 (GMT), Joe Richards
<joefish75 at yahoo.com>
> You make a valid point, but the instant reaction of a few people I showed
> openstreetmap.org to in Australia was "oh a map of Europe/UK".  It was
only
> after a bit of scrolling/panning that they got the idea, it was "a bit
like
> Google Maps but with different colours".  Obviously after much ranting on
> my part they 'got it' but if I hadn't been there, they would have looked
at
> the map, and surfed onto another site. 

That's exactly why I think the front page needs to really highlight more
than the slippy map, which just says "we're Google maps with different
colours (and with gaps, slooowwww search and no obvious way to send a link
with a marker)."

It's funny how a lot of people just ignore most of the UI elements on a web
page and stick to what looks like the main content. We've learned to ignore
adverts, menus we probably don't need, etc.

The idea that many people will understand OpenStreetMap by seeing the map,
noticing the edit link and maybe signing up, or read and understand the
text on the left, or following a link to "Help/Wiki" and navigating through
the tremendously confusing pages, is a bit fanciful.

People are different; some like text, others like pictures, and those we
can't help much with a web page like sounds and touchy-feely learning. The
least we could do is give stronger visual clues to the distinctiveness of
OSM, which so far the 3 column layout does better than any other
suggestions I've read about so far.

Regards,
Tom