[OSM-talk] OpenSnowMap.org

[Steve Bennett]

On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 7:56 AM, yvecai <yvecai at gmail.com> wrote:
> Pistes informations with a single clic:No more 'vector mode'. Lighter,
> better compatibility with browsers.
>
> Search for pistes by names:Nominatim results are augmented with a selection
> of ski pistes and lifts.
>
> Multi-modal routing and elevation profiles:You can climb dowhnills, take a
> lift downward and a shortcut in snowshoes. Yes !
>
> Forum:Yet another channel. It's more dedicated to newcomers, and aim to
> ensure the site viabilty in the long-term.

Excellent! Some feedback:
- the terrain shading is distracting and not useful at higher zoom
levels (16+, maybe 15+)
- why not show the names of the runs? (rather than having to click on them)
- the "interactive mode" button is not intuitive at all. I had no idea
it was a button until I happened to click Settings. Why not leave
interactive mode on all the time?
- in the mountains I looked at, the chairlift icons are often upside down...
- could it be more obvious which is the start of each (downhill) run?
- would be great to have a summer/winter mode button (in summer mode,
show the mountain bike trails, hiking routes etc)
- at low zooms (<10), it's hard to find the ski resorts - they could
be much more prominent
- suggest changing "mapkey" to "legend" (or just "key". Or at least
put a space in it :))
- what is the "profile" button meant to do? It just gives this one tip
about clicking the interactive button...
- I find the whole "interactive" mode clunky and not intuitive. Why
not follow the established conventions of direction finding, using a
similar interface to Google Maps, Bing Maps, or hell, OSRM? It's
pretty confusing: it took me a while to work out that it's even doing
routing. All I wanted to do was click on a run to find out more about
it.
- the "mapkey" doesn't explain what the little warning signs ( /!\ )
are for. Steepness?
- I also see two different coloured XC trails, but I can't see
anything in the legend that explains why?
- I love the elevation profile - would be great to be able to click on
a single run/track and see the profile for it.
- the wiki page that is linked to to explain the colour coding of ski
runs doesn't actually explain them:
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/Tag:route%3Dpiste
(Suggest you just include text descriptions, like "easy", "difficult"
etc)
- would be great to use bezier smoothing on the ski runs if at all
possible - they look very sharp and jagged.

Anyway, overall it looks great! Don't be put off my feedback :)

Steve