webGIS are everywhere – often GoogleMaps mashups, but also more sophisticated ones. Having programmed a few, I’m starting to have a keen eyes of the issues faced by the programmers. Here is the start of a mini-serie of discussions related to user experience of webGIS.
Over the weekend I intensively used flight trackers websites to check some airport closure. I normally use https://www.flightradar24.com/, but as I scrutinized the airport closed with an unidentified plane on it, I looked for another flight tracker website to see if there were more info about that plane. I came across https://planefinder.net and was shocked at the different of user experience between both. So what makes the main differences?
flightradar24.com opens on your country (however if you reload you end up with the world view it seems),
however planefinder.net opens on the world.. which makes the interface much messier
The markers they used is also of different size. Where flightradar24.com went for relatively some planes,
planefinder.net went for very large plane with strong shadows.
When there are so many planes around, it is quite difficult to see any land. I prefer the experience of using flightradar24.com, and will keep in mind this next time I have to make an interactive map with markers!