One of the most damaging UI mistakes that are made when building a web map application is to have a toolbar that contains every widget known to man front and center. It even gets worse when the 4 commands that would be used 90% of the time are buried within that mess. We call this “Widget Hoarding” and GIS’ers love to do it. For a consumer facing web map keep widgets to a minimum, only displaying the widgets that are used 90% of the time. If you need other widgets that add deeper engagement put them where they can be found by the 10% of the power users that would actually use it but not in such a place to confuse the average consumer.
Rule of Thumb!
If it is used make it easy to find, easy to use, and easy to understand what the widget is meant for. If it is used some of the time then put it in a box somewhere that is accessible.
Map Usability Fail Series: #1 Zoom To Rectangle
Map Usability Fail Series: #3 Creating Custom Map Controls
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Map Usability Fail Series: #2 Map Widget Hoarding! A New Post - @SkipCody http://bit.ly/n6egWC #BADUI #MAP
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