[OSM-talk] [OSM-dev] The map key isn't static anymore

Tom Chance tom at acrewoods.net
Wed Jun 24 09:44:27 BST 2009


On Tuesday 23 Jun 2009 23:45:31 Tom Hughes wrote:
> The map key is now a HTML table instead of a static PNG image as can
>
> > be seen on the dev server (click "Map key"):
> >
> > http://api06.dev.openstreetmap.org/
> >
> > (Should be on the main site soon)

It's definitely an improvement but I think it raises three usability issues:

1 - There are so many similar shades of colours that I doubt the average 
visitor would be able to deduce what map features (for example) each of these 
green areas matches up to:
http://api06.dev.openstreetmap.org/?lat=51.43899&lon=-0.07248&zoom=15

2 - Features you want in an urban area are sometimes completely missing (i.e. 
POIs) or mixed in with less important features (e.g. schools, retail areas)

3 - The key isn't entirely up to date with mapnik, so for example an area 
that's amenity=hospital currently renders the same as a school, whereas the 
key says that coloured area is (only) a school or university


I'm not sure exactly what you do about these issues, but they need the Mapnik 
stylesheet team and the people who put the key together to have a bit more of 
a think. Either just show a prioritised list (before, at z18, it gets insanely 
long) or have collapsible categories, or use the trick of allowing people to 
click on the map and it tell them what that is.

Regards,
Tom




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