Information on Map Layers - consistency and usefulness

[imagico]

I think there is significant room for improvement of the information on the meanwhile six map layers available on the website provided to the user. Right now in the layer selector we only have the title (which is not really that descriptive in many cases) and what is on the bottom right on the map. That consists of OSM attribution and Website and API terms plus a middle part which depends on the layer chosen, currently:

• Standard: Make a Donation
• CyclOSM: Tiles style by CyclOSM hosted by OpenStreetMap France
• Cycle Map: Tiles courtesy of Andy Allan
• Transport Map: Tiles courtesy of Andy Allan
• ÖPNVKarte: Tiles courtesy of MeMoMaps
• Humanitarian: Tiles style by Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team hosted by OpenStreetMap France

This seams to be very non-uniform and purely based on the interests of the technical tile providers and fairly non-ideal for the user experience and for supporting the reasons why we have these different map layers on the site (as reflected in the Guidelines for new tile layers).

Specific suggestions on how this could be improved:

• For the three layers which are based on open map styles (see here) link to the map style projects, this helps giving these projects publicity and this way support in their work:
  • OSM-Carto
  • CyclOSM
  • Humanitarian
• Each map layer has a page on the OSM wiki - linking to that would be helpful as well:
  • https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Standard_tile_layer
  • https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/CyclOSM
  • https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenCycleMap
  • https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Transport_Map
  • https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/%C3%96PNVKarte
  • https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Humanitarian_map_style
• For at least three of the layers there exists a hand curated map key that would be useful as well to link - useful map keys are a frequent request by website users, see also Map Key for OpenCycleMap and other layers #982, Improve key for Standard layer #1307:
  • https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Standard_tile_layer/Key
  • https://www.cyclosm.org/legend.html
  • https://www.opencyclemap.org/docs/
• A short descriptive text for each layer (to be shown as tooltip or in the layer selector for the active layer if there is enough space on screen) would be very good as well. Of course i realize that this would be work to create and maintain. Important information (all part of the Guidelines for new tile layers) would be in particular:
  • Thematic significance of the layer and usefulness for the visitor
  • Update interval of the data
  • Any use of non-OSM data

[tomhughes]

Well the point is to keep it short and simple - we don't want to obliterate the entire map with pages of credits!

We have technology to do map keys and are perfectly happy to do so if somebody opens a PR but I don't see how linking to third party keys is helpful when we're trying to present a consistent and integrated experience.

[imagico]

This is not about providing credits, it is about providing interested website visitors with information and references to external content they are likely to need or desire and about channeling potential interests of site users to where it is potentially useful (namely the community projects behind the map layers)

Regarding map keys - if you have a well usable map key produced through technology for any of the map layers that is great but so far i have never seen anything like that for any map style. Good, well readable map keys still inevitably involve significant hand work. And none of the keys i linked to are third party - they are all produced by people involved in the design of the map layers in question. Integration into the website would be great of course but so far no one has produced something like that for any of the map layers (the map key for the standard style does not really qualify because it is simply wrong for the most part).

And to be clear - these are all just suggestions - i don't claim i know the ideal way to actually implement them nor that i think these are the only or even the most significant issues with the way the map layers are presented.

[tomhughes]

They are third party in that they are not openstreetmap.org and presented in a consistent style across all layers as part of the openstreetmap.org user interface.