This morning MapQuest launched their US support of OpenStreetMap at open.mapquest.com. In playing with the interface, I noticed how MapQuest added a tab at some point for showing and hiding the sidebar of search results and other associated design choices and differences.

MapQuest uses an “Outie” tab (highlighted in the screenshot below). The design choice was clearly to make it very explicit for users to show and hide the sidebar as it protrudes into the map interface. The pan and zoom controls are on the right-hand side, so when you toggle the sidebar, the controls stay in the same location. Another interesting aspect is how the map resizes. In MapQuest, the same geographic center and extents remain in the screen center – so as the sidebar closes the map shifts to the left and expands slightly.

Curious about how this varies, I checked in Google Maps. They chose to be much more subtle about their sidebar toggle. It is an “innie” that is subtly hidden within the header. Closing the sidebar turns the selection to an “outie”, but still remains out of the way in the header. A particularly interesting decision is that the map remains in the same location – so the zoom pan controls move but new areas of the map are exposed. So while the user doesn’t have a context shift (points on the map remain in the same area of the screen) the map now needs to be recentered so that the focus area can be kept in the center.

Lastly, looking at Bing maps it’s a bit of a hybrid between the two. The sidebar tab is in the header like Google, but hiding the sidebar re-centers the map like MapQuest. The controls in Bing are in the header, so they don’t need to shift when the sidebar is toggled. What’s perhaps a little confusing is there is also an “X” close button next to the sidebar tab that clears the search results. It’s not really clear why you would want to clear results – and instead there should be an option to go back to the “table of contents” or similar concept that shows simple links for directions and more.

Much like the emergence of Pan-Zoom bars have become the defacto standard in web mapping interfaces – the sidebar has also become nearly ubiquitous. So it’s interesting to see the slight variations as interaction designers experiment with what users will find easy to understand.

A couple of months ago I post-deadline submitted a panel suggestion called “Neocartography: Mapping Design and Usability Evolved” to SXSWi and asked for people to help by voting for it. I was notified very late that room was made and the panel got the green light. We had to tweak the panelists and topic somewhat from the original proposal, and thank you to those that helped promote the idea and make it happen.

The goal of the panel is to explain and explore the next generation of mapping tools combined with traditional cartographic techniques to encompass modern capabilities and user expectations. The official description is:

Designers are dropping maps into their applications with little concern for usability or design and users are underwhelmed by just another map mashup. We need to move beyond the simple pin-dropping and consider appropriate mapping interfaces. This panel will look at the current and emerging tools to provide compelling geographic interaction and visualization.

The Panel

The goal was to find panel members that represented different aspects of leading thought behind web map design and usability. A cutting edge artist and designer building industry leading interfaces, a usability expert and lead of the industry changing and most broadly used web mapping platform, and a researcher and formal cartographer bringing traditional techniques to the future. This was quite a daunting task, and am fortunate that just a such a representation was possible to bring to SXSWi:

• Mike Migurski, technology lead at Stamen Design
• Elizabeth Windram, User Experience Designer for Maps at Google
• David Heyman, Web Cartographer at AxisMaps and lecturer at University of Wisconsin

Each panelist is an expert in their own right and offers incredible insight, experience and advice. Brought together they can compare ideals, methods, techniques and tools. But with only 60 minutes, what topics to focus on? This is where you can help.

The Participation

While I have my own ideas of topics to discuss, I would like input from the world on what topics around mapping, cartographic design, and usability are on your minds. Please check out the Google Moderator topic I created. Create new questions or suggestions, vote pertinent ones up and boring ones down. I’ll be using this list to formulate the questions or topics the panel will be discussing.

The Anticipation

SXSWi is in just under two weeks – so there isn’t much time. Get your suggestions in now. In addition to the Google Moderator I’ll be using Twitter during the panel to accept additional suggestions or topics. And we’ll make sure to record the whole thing to share with everyone afterwards.