Interactive Maps are Awesome
Since it was first announced in 2005 as a competitor to Mapquest, Google Maps have proved to have many uses as well as being a simple, intuitive mapping solution that many developers have used to do many cool things. 10,000 Words has a really nice collection of posts featuring a lot of nice maps, a lot of which use Google Maps as the base for their interactivity.
Screenshot from CO Trip
The first one I looked at is CO Trip and is a traffic solution for Colorado drivers maintained by the Colorado Department of Transportation. It has a lot of nice pages such as road conditions, road work and a speed map. Another really nice feature is that it has pictures from different traffic webcams, I am originally from Colorado so it was cool to see some of the intersections I used to frequent. It looks like there are also future plans to have some streaming video. When I checked it, they had updated it about 15 minutes prior, which isn’t too bad especially at 7 p.m. after the rush hour has passed.
Screenshot from London 2010
The second map I looked at was from the website from the 2012 London Olympics website, and it allows people to view events going on in their area by location. It has a pretty radical color scheme, and uses these markers that show what kind of events are going on. Any given tab could have multiple events and types of events, or could be a single event and one color. It looks like it used Google Maps as well, and it is a nice use of customization.
Screenshot from LA Times
Finally I took a look at the LA Times homicide map which is similar to the Baltimore Sun’s homicide map, but with a couple more statistics, and the mapping of the homicides is limited to the 25 names on each page. I actually like the LA Times map a little more because of the filters, but I like the Sun’s map because it has better options for viewing all of the data for a whole year, rather than being limited. They also used Google Maps here.
Overall Google Maps can be a very powerful tool when integrated with other design elements or even just a simple mapping can be effective and add some context and locational data that can help viewers to better understand and connect with stories and ideas.
Nice selection of maps, Josh. As your post shows, they are very versatile in presenting a wide range of information.