Mapping public information

An interesting post from Andrew Turner with his thoughts on the Beyond Broadcast Conference, this year looking at Mapping Public Media.

It is quite obvious the very prevalent impact and interest in mapping and geographic visualization of data. The tools have become approachable and the public comfortable, even expecting, rich cartographic interfaces and exploration. Also, being a US Election year, voting maps are obviously in high supply.

There's no denying that many forms of visualising location-based data, particularly mapping, are becoming very prevalent on the web and mobile platforms.

However, I'm still yet to be convinced that the tools are approachable to the majority of users, or that the public are comfortable with interfaces that are often complex and require more than a little effort to explore.

There are obviously plenty of good and bad implementations of maps/mapping on the web so it would be wrong to label them all with the same criticism - and, for the time being at least, I'm going to avoid picking out my own examples.

People are familiar with using maps in the context of finding their way from place A to place B, or for checking the location of a particular place. When it comes to browsing and searching content on a map then this is still a new process for many people and user experience designers need to remember this when designing new applications.

Don't forget, it's not about the map - it's about providing the best and simplest access to the content and underlying data.

One particular example can be seen in the recent interest in putting crime data onto maps - taking a lead from the original Chicago Crime Map (which has interestingly expanded into EveryBlock and is much less reliant on maps to display the data than the old site).

• BBC NEWS | Politics | Online maps to show local crime
  Online maps with crimes plotted on them every month are set to be introduced in England and Wales, Gordon Brown says.

Two examples of existing 'crime maps' in the UK:-

• www.beatcrime.info - Get The Picture of Crime in Your Area
  Welcome to Beatcrime where you can find out about crime on your beat and your street

• MyNeighbourhood - West Midlands Interactive Crime Mapping Application
  MyNeighbourhood provides a unique and interactive community safety experience for residents of the West Midlands. View the latest crime in your neighbourhood, learn about crime prevention and have your say.