During last weekend, Emmet and I earmarked time to discuss existing map software, such as goolemaps. Importantly, we also wanted to look at how others were appropriating such software. One project doing this has just arrived http://www.yourhistoryhere.com/ We started observing this in some detail because not only is it using googlemaps, it’s setting out to achieve some of what we’re hoping to - that is the creation of a social mapping tool that allows people to attach their feelings to a place. Evaluating this project helped us to define theirwork further.
There is no feeling of real community yet, but it’s early days
The comment section of the site will allow a sense of community to build up
How are we going to portray a feeling of community?
At the moment we use a wiki for people to write into, they can go to the forum to chat/comment
Do we want a comment section, instead of a wiki/forum?
Will wiki entries enable a sense of community to build up?
How visible will the forum be?
Will we highlight any of its comments upfront?
We’re the opposite of yourhistoryhere
We’re pinned down to a geographical area
When will we grow to other geographical areas?
How will this effect the growth of the project?
Are we working ‘more’ from the bottom up because of our approach?
The language is formal, until you look down at the bottom of the entry page, and then it’s quite exciting! They talk about myfirstkiss and placeopedia. You finally start to get enticed in.
We need to create language that’s friendly and easy going
This is one of the reasons flickr is successful
There is no real navigation, no intrigue
The slider to traverse the map is too sensitive
The interface, and look and feel is too formal
The colours are bland and old
The idea of place is lacking because there is no photographic evidence of place
They just use text and map
We need to have photos/visuals
Maybe they’ve left photos/visuals out on purpose?
Maybe they’re coming later.
We wonder where they want to go with it?
It’s not friendly enough. Nor is it deep enough. Nor is it creating enough feeling
And it’s just all laid out there, there’s not much enticing there
We need to create a subtle set of intrigues and feelings
We need to create pause and reflection
We need to invite people, so they wanna come in
Perhaps we need to use tags to bring them in
We need to create the start of an enticing framework, and then interface.
One project that got us back to being excited was Elasticspace: The land that time forgot
Okay, so it’s not a tool, it’s about a feeling, but it brings together geo-coordinated track marks and photographs. Your eyes are made to walk the screen. Textures and marks appear.
We realise we need to be in the middle of these two projects. We want to create a tool, but we want it to be evocative.
Getting somewhere towards the middle, is this one I just discovered
The use of tags as an interface gets me really excited. They’re of real use, and of simple beauty.
Urbantic let’s you create a list of your favorite places. Use ‘Your Places’ along with your own tags to create your personalized directory.
That’s exactly what Emmet and I started imagining by the end of the weekend. Now we need to review this project.
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[…] We agreed that the wiki could become the database that drives the map and that the interface will allow soft data to get added. We also agreed that hard data might start to reveal itself. We agreed that handling data like this, keeping it in reserve, would enable us to develop a more suggestive tool. It would also keep in check that the project didn’t get too data heavy. We know we don’t want the project to be top heavy. In fact, at this point of the discussion, I shared with Emmet old meeting notes from earlier research I had carried out, (that I will later put up here or on the wiki) that demonstrate this was the model I was being guided towards in the past - a project that is driven government wise, data wise and design wise from the top down. We are developing a tool by working from the bottom up - by way of workshops, interviews and an open online presence […]