[OSM-talk] Move the Map

[Richard Mann]

Free-thinking from ignorance of how practical it would be for the
developer...

Maybe one way of foregrounding OSM's data-richness would be to have access
to some of this detail - and ideally an edit option (just the tags for that
area/way/node) - if you click on something. This takes you from "I can see
it" to "I know what it is" to "I could change it" in the minimum number of
steps.

You could go further - shift click to add a new point (at high zoom levels),
perhaps.

Richard

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 10:34 AM, Tom Chance <tom at acrewoods.net> wrote:

>
> 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
>
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