Tobias, Everyone--

The problem I find with most maps used to navigate the web or just show
search results is that they are too large and too slow, or just too
illogical. (This is what I like about The Brain, by the way--at least I
can organize things the way _I_ think--but this is off-topic right now.)
I did find the Swiss map really interesting but, again, it just took too
long to navigate. The scale is just all wrong with these things. I don't
want to play a video game, I just won't to retrieve information. If you
truly can stuff your data into a "really small one" you may just have
something. You might try something on the scale of a library room in a
house, not the entire state of Texas... ;o)

Hey, I like maps. I used to map my neighborhood when I was a little kid.
The problem I found immediately was that it's difficult to cram a lot of
text into a visual display. You could write something like "grocery
store," but you really couldn't put in the guy's name, or the price of
soda pop, or when he was open and closed. The "solution" to this with
web maps is always to open up a regular browser window that hopefully
has the information you are looking for. IMnsHO, this isn't a good
solution. It clutters things up, it makes the whole process too
complicated, and generally, it's just really clunky, if not downright
dorky. :o)

The nice thing about the popular search engine, Google (c), is that it
gives you the results _in context_. We need the visual equivalent of
this with web maps. Just opening up a page is easy, but it's ultimately
a cop-out. You need to be able to get to the relevant information
directly. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know exactly what would be
involved, but I don't think you would need anything really complicated
like artificial intelligence. You just need to be able to distinguish
between a serious topic and the rock group of the same name. And you
need to be able to visually zoom in on the written data without killing
the map just so you can view a bloated 800x600 webpage with blinking
lights and pulsating backgrounds. Let's see, maybe a little window with
a chuck of data equivalent to the Google blurb you get when you run a
search there, but scrollable so you can view what else is attached to
that blurb. Something along the line of frames embedded in maps,
possibly using other, inset, maps rather than text would be another
avenue to explore. Somehow we need to destroy the tyranny of the
complete webpage if we are to have web maps that add anything to the
surfing experience.

And above all else, the map has to mean something. If you're thinking of
taking a trip to Jamaica, well then sure, a map of the actual island
with little insets with prices and number of swimming pools and pictures
of the dancing girls...you get the picture... But just sticking little
icons onto a little spinning globe with no rhyme nor reason is silly.
The map designer has to look at how information is arranged in the real
world. There is a lot to learn from the thousands of years of human
experience. Just one quick example: I have mentioned that I've been
tromping through graveyards lately, photographing tombstones. Now it's
always nice to get there on a weekday with a list of who you're looking
for and have them go through the card catalog or computer and tell you
where everybody is, but that's not always possible. (A good map, of
course, should have a written index.) You don't have to be Sherlock
Holmes, though, to have a decent chance of finding who you're looking
for. People tend to be buried in order! Earlier graves in one spot,
later ones in another. Sometimes families plan ahead, so you find the
earliest member in the old section and there are Aunt Minnie and Uncle
Charlie all clustered together--hyperlinked, if you will. Hebrew
tombstones often have two sides, in two languages, with differing names
on each side and references to who the person was the son or daughter of
and even what their status was--again, hyperlinked information, but
within the context of a common geographic order. Even the style of the
stone can be a clue as to whether adjacent ones are related. One could
build a genealogical search engine in the style of a virtual cemetery
with an office and specific hyperlinks at the stones themselves,
families clustered together or arranged by date, depending on the
options chosen. Sorry for the gruesome example, but the point is the map
relates to the informational territory!

Later,

Steve Franklin
[log in to unmask]


Tobias Limbach wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I would like to discuss the pros and cons of Maps on the
> Internet.
> We are currently researching about Geographic Metadata, and
> my boss wants to know if people (users...) would accept
> Interactive maps for displaying search results. Like the
> really small ones where we can add roads, rivers, boundaries
> and whatever..
>
> Greetings from Lake Constance
> Tobias
>
> mailto:[log in to unmask]
>
> Tobias Limbach        Universität Konstanz
>                       Fachbereich Informatik und
>                       Informationswissenschaft
>                       AG Prof. Dr. H. Reiterer
>                       Tel.: +49(0)7531-88-2868