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Topic on Talk:Wikimedia Maps/2015-2017/Conversation about interactive map use

Usability of buttons

5
Nilfanion (talkcontribs)

Interactive maps become less useful as the image displayed gets smaller. When they get below a certain size, it would be better to just freeze and provide a static image.

One cause of this is the buttons. When the map is too small, they will cover up too much.

An additional button that could be very useful in the context of WP articles: A 'reset' button that lets the user return to the initially presented map and undo any panning/zooming they may have done.

I will probably make a number of other small posts as I think of them.

CKoerner (WMF) (talkcontribs)

The default thumbnail size for images is 220 pixels wide if I recall correctly. When using the visual editor the Map defaults are 400 by 300 pixels. In the documentation for interactive maps, and maybe in our defaults for editing, would it be useful to recommend a minimum size? Is 400 by 300 a good recommendation?

Nilfanion (talkcontribs)

It doesn't sound unreasonable as a first guess. An interactive map should be substantially bigger than a static image to allow exploration through it.

Yurik (talkcontribs)

We do plan to make a static image service, plus i wonder if something like the graph extension with some map data would be better suited for it. I also wonder how small images will cope with mentioning copyright.

Nilfanion (talkcontribs)

Have to say I'm not keen on having the copyright information prominently visible in article. We do not do that for 99.9% of images, and having that on a file description page is deemed sufficient.

Changing that for this one type of media looks unseemly, and has potential to irritate contributors of other media ("why attribute them but not me?").

I realise that may not be viable, but reducing the size to the minimum amount may be beneficial. Static images ought to behave like existing media - with a click through for that info.

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