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Should this be a map or 500 maps?

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Re: Should this be a map or 500 maps?

#21

Post by reddalo »

nicbou wrote: post #10

We had a lively discussion about Google Maps in my cycling group. It's very annoying to have a map that is only designed to show the fastest route, and that forcefully reroutes you to it. It doesn't let you avoid a road or favour another. It does not show named bike routes and hiking trails. It doesn't even let you keep the screen on without having directions. For most people, the entire experience of using a map is…

Shout out to OsmAnd, it's a great app. Worth the money for the premium version.

Re: Should this be a map or 500 maps?

#22

Post by eCa »

nicbou wrote: post #10

We had a lively discussion about Google Maps in my cycling group. It's very annoying to have a map that is only designed to show the fastest route, and that forcefully reroutes you to it. It doesn't let you avoid a road or favour another. It does not show named bike routes and hiking trails. It doesn't even let you keep the screen on without having directions. For most people, the entire experience of using a map is…

OsmAnd is awesome, I use it especially when walking in new cities.

For cycling though, I’m a happy user of cycle.travel[1].

[1] https://cycle.travel/map

Re: Should this be a map or 500 maps?

#23

Post by yen223 »

lmm wrote: post #3

I hate overly designed news articles. I want to read the words and maybe see a couple of relevant pictures, thanks. Similarly I suspect most of these different individual maps are just bad. Whimsy and idiosyncrasy are all very well in theory, but in practice they're mostly just annoying.

Well, you've got your wish. Every damned website now looks the same. Whatever creativity the early internet promised has now been snuffed out to appease the user-metrics gods.

Re: Should this be a map or 500 maps?

#24

Post by sfphoton »

netsharc wrote: post #18
nicbou wrote: post #10

We had a lively discussion about Google Maps in my cycling group. It's very annoying to have a map that is only designed to show the fastest route, and that forcefully reroutes you to it. It doesn't let you avoid a road or favour another. It does not show named bike routes and hiking trails. It doesn't even let you keep the screen on without having directions. For most people, the entire experience of using a map is…

A crowdsourced map with a collection of "favorite routes" would be an interesting idea, although some people (including me) hate trodding down beaten paths. I suppose these are mostly on websites/specialized apps, eg. for hikers.

Actually you can fit your needs with Openstreetmap. People regularly upload public GPS traces that you can view - thus, get a rough idea of how popular a path is. But OSM also shows all the paths, so you can avoid beaten paths as well.

Re: Should this be a map or 500 maps?

#25

Post by nicbou »

peebeebee wrote: post #15
nicbou wrote: post #10

We had a lively discussion about Google Maps in my cycling group. It's very annoying to have a map that is only designed to show the fastest route, and that forcefully reroutes you to it. It doesn't let you avoid a road or favour another. It does not show named bike routes and hiking trails. It doesn't even let you keep the screen on without having directions. For most people, the entire experience of using a map is…

Most of our software is bland because it is about practicality and functionality. A UI should do a lot more things than to be expressive. Being expressive is very low on the list. Reliability, accessibility and recognisability are very high on that list. Expressiveness also tends to fight accessibility and recognisability. This also goes for other design fields. As a (stupid) example: I can design all kinds of weird…

Style is not the only form of expression. Adapting a tool to your workflow is also a form of expression. I'm surprised that with all of their resources, tech companies still build software that completely ignore relatively common use cases like hiking.

Re: Should this be a map or 500 maps?

#26

Post by dsign »

nicbou wrote: post #25
peebeebee wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of our software is bland because it is about practicality and functionality. A UI should do a lot more things than to be expressive. Being expressive is very low on the list. Reliability, accessibility and recognisability are very high on that list. Expressiveness also tends to fight accessibility and recognisability. This also goes for other design fields. As a (stupid) example: I can design all kinds of weird…

Style is not the only form of expression. Adapting a tool to your workflow is also a form of expression. I'm surprised that with all of their resources, tech companies still build software that completely ignore relatively common use cases like hiking.

There are plenty of apps with maps for hiking. Hell, I use QGis when I go in long-paddle boarding expeditions (a general purpose GIS environment). I'm fine with letting the big monopolies handle the 90% case of going from A to B as quickly and efficiently as possible. And I'm very, very grateful for the other 10% which is enjoyable and in the realm of citizen agency.

Re: Should this be a map or 500 maps?

#27

Post by madeofpalk »

nicbou wrote: post #10

We had a lively discussion about Google Maps in my cycling group. It's very annoying to have a map that is only designed to show the fastest route, and that forcefully reroutes you to it. It doesn't let you avoid a road or favour another. It does not show named bike routes and hiking trails. It doesn't even let you keep the screen on without having directions. For most people, the entire experience of using a map is…

I feel this a lot cycling in London. Both Apple and Google maps really wants you to cycle along the canals, which can be a huge pain especially on busy weekends. Thankfully I know some areas well enough and I just cycle through the path 10 metres "inland", but the maps constantly want me to do a u-turn and get back on the canal.

Re: Should this be a map or 500 maps?

#28

Post by dtx1 »

reddalo wrote: post #21
nicbou wrote: post #10

We had a lively discussion about Google Maps in my cycling group. It's very annoying to have a map that is only designed to show the fastest route, and that forcefully reroutes you to it. It doesn't let you avoid a road or favour another. It does not show named bike routes and hiking trails. It doesn't even let you keep the screen on without having directions. For most people, the entire experience of using a map is…

Shout out to OsmAnd, it's a great app. Worth the money for the premium version.

And its free in fdroid

edit: Don't understand the Downvotes, the Version on F-Droid is a legitimate free version of the premium app version: https://f-droid.org/de/packages/net.osmand.plus/

Re: Should this be a map or 500 maps?

#29

Post by jorisboris »

nicbou wrote: post #10

We had a lively discussion about Google Maps in my cycling group. It's very annoying to have a map that is only designed to show the fastest route, and that forcefully reroutes you to it. It doesn't let you avoid a road or favour another. It does not show named bike routes and hiking trails. It doesn't even let you keep the screen on without having directions. For most people, the entire experience of using a map is…

I’m still looking for a map which let me optimize for “stopping as little as possible” which in practice means avoiding traffic jams and traffic lights.

I notice this makes me drive more relax, and especially with a baby it’s way easier to keep the baby asleep

Re: Should this be a map or 500 maps?

#30

Post by breck »

psychoslave wrote: post #12

> modularity is inversely correlated to expressiveness I would highly mitigate this statement. It’s more like some forms of expressiveness are out of scope once you settle for a set of constraints, be it through modularity requirements in precise specifications sent to people that all passed the same qualifying formation, or vague query to a set of random people who don’t held in common much more than ability to matc…

I've made some incredibly expressive art, perhaps the best art in all of history, by ignoring all modular constraints.

I'd show it to you, but I ignored the constraint of sticking to the visible frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum.

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