Map Usability Fail Series: #4 Take Advantage of your Base Map Control

I was browsing property portals the other day and while doing so I came across this frustrating usability fail; Where is the Birds Eye Imagery? I ran into a popular brokerage site that decided it would be a good idea to remove the Birds Eye option from the UI of their Bing map. I can see a site doing this if it had no use for this feature but in this case I was looking at properties and as a consumer one item that I have come use to is that of looking at all 4 sides of the property. One of the main reason that property portals use Bing over Google is for the use of the Birds Eye option.
What did I do? I went to another site that I knew had Birds Eye and this portal just lost my consumer eyes. Keeping the end user on your site should be a top priority. Once lost it is difficult to get that user back.

Tip: If your base map control is giving you something that is useful and consumers expect it, use it!

For the map savvy people out there you can use Alt+B to switch to Birds Eye if the option does not exist.

Map Usability Fail Series: #1 Zoom To Rectangle
Map Usability Fail Series: #2 Map Widget Hoarding
Map Usability Fail Series: #3 Creating Custom Map Controls

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