One of the interesting things about working with online maps is that there are still problems which do not have a well established solution. One example is how to deal with several pins being in the same place on the map.
This happens quite often for us – usually when there are a couple of flats in the same building or when a new development comes on the market.
In our first version of the maps we just let the pins sit on top of each other (left image). The only way that you could tell that there was wore than one property was the darker shadow. Obviously this was not good enough. It was too subtle and you couldn’t tell exactly how many properties there were at that point.
We improved it by staggering the overlapping pins (middle image). This clearly showed that there were several properties and made them easy to count. However the letters were hidden on all the pins behind the first one and they were difficult to click on. Another issue was that when you zoomed the map in and out the pins in the group moved relative to each other – which was unnerving.
Finally we tried leaning the pins out from each other (right image). This works really well as the letters are visible, the pins easy to click on and they all point to the correct place on the map. Also it looks much more natural than the other attempts making it clear and obvious what the pins mean.
Looking at other mapping sites on the web there are many other approaches that are being tried but for now there is no clear winner. Any suggestions or ideas you have for how we could improve are very welcome, we don’t pretend to have the prefect solution just yet.
I think that the lack of ‘accepted wisdom’ is resulting in some real creativity, which is why online mapping is a really dynamic area at the moment. Long may it last.
