Why Make Maps?

• To help people find things
• To help people make decisons
• To visualize information

Lets find the… Nevermind…

Map Portals… Not even once

Not Just Map Portals

Lets go to the park… Not…

Some Real-World Metrics

• Web Map Metrics From the City of Denver
• More Web Analytics from the Field
• WHy Map Portals Don't Work Part 1 of 5

Single-Topic maps get 3 times the traffic of the traditional Map Portal

Lession: Be consice your map should do one thing well.

People Actually Interact with Balloon Content

Lession: Don't neglect your popups.

People Rarely Change Default Map Settings

2% of visitors changed basemaps, 0.5% used fullscreen.

Lession: Less is more. Reduce your tools and layers.

People Look Up Info on Maps, and Leave

Auto completing search is key. Average visit was 1:43.

Lession: Get users in an out as fast as possible.

Only 12% of users browse information for more than three geographic features during a single visit.

Lession: Users care about a single feature.

Treat Everyone Like An Idiot

• You
• Your Users
• Your Coworkers
• Your Boss

Learn How Much

User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) Summit

1pm-6pm Wednesday

Santa Rosa/San Jacinto

C is for Contrast

R is for Repetition

If its good enough to put on the page once its good enough to put on there again.

• Show popups on hover AND click?
• Filter a map AND and a list?
• Introduce shortcuts and keyboard commands?

A is for Area

Are the biggest things the most important?

P is for Proximity

How far apart are important elements? How long will it take a user to find them?

Design Is All About Balance

Ugly is Good

Remember Me?

Good and Bad

But my boss wont give me time to design something!

- You - Right Now