We want everything in our lives, especially online, to be context-aware and display only relevant information.
Our world is full of distractions, and we, as creators of (online) maps, add to it.
We create maps that overload our audience with information and hide essential details in our maps.
People can only retain a limited amount of information, and we should be mindful of that.
In this talk, I will show you techniques on how to reduce distractions in your maps and show lots of examples of distraction-free maps. And answer the talk title question.
Let your data shine.
In this second iteration of my talk about distraction-free online maps, we explore how we as creators of online maps more often than we think about it add to a world of distraction.
In my first talk on this subject at NACIS 2019, I looked at the history of online maps and how basemaps have evolved over time. And how we got away from just using online maps for navigation to maps that provide additional information. But only changed the look of basemaps and not rethought its concept.
In this talk, I want to show more techniques and examples people can use right away to improve their online maps and start a discussion if we need basemaps in their current form.
Topics that will be covered
- research around distraction and information overload
- Distraction in maps
- Techniques to improve your maps
- Basemap improvements over the years
Questions I want to discuss:
- How much information is just enough information?
- What context are we providing with our basemaps or lack thereof?
- Are we overloading our map users with too much information?
- What defaults we can add to our mapping libraries?
Audience
Creators of (online) maps and researchers.
What to take home
- How you can improve your maps with simple techniques
- What tools are available to enhance your basemaps
- Think about the audience of your maps
- Think about the effectiveness of your maps
Talk at NACIS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfvAc-8reZ8