On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 07:07:45 +0000 (GMT), Joe Richards <[email protected]> > You make a valid point, but the instant reaction of a few people I showed > openstreetmap.org to in Australia was "oh a map of Europe/UK". It was only > after a bit of scrolling/panning that they got the idea, it was "a bit like > Google Maps but with different colours". Obviously after much ranting on > my part they 'got it' but if I hadn't been there, they would have looked at > the map, and surfed onto another site.
That's exactly why I think the front page needs to really highlight more than the slippy map, which just says "we're Google maps with different colours (and with gaps, slooowwww search and no obvious way to send a link with a marker)." It's funny how a lot of people just ignore most of the UI elements on a web page and stick to what looks like the main content. We've learned to ignore adverts, menus we probably don't need, etc. The idea that many people will understand OpenStreetMap by seeing the map, noticing the edit link and maybe signing up, or read and understand the text on the left, or following a link to "Help/Wiki" and navigating through the tremendously confusing pages, is a bit fanciful. People are different; some like text, others like pictures, and those we can't help much with a web page like sounds and touchy-feely learning. The least we could do is give stronger visual clues to the distinctiveness of OSM, which so far the 3 column layout does better than any other suggestions I've read about so far. Regards, Tom _______________________________________________ talk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
