Thematic maps are especially difficult to do well on mobile: Just for one, small entities are hard to see in traditional cartographic layouts. Jonas Oesch who works for the Zurich-based newspaper “NZZ” has written a summary blog post of research that looked into this problem for thematic world maps:
Most world maps you see online are not really designed for mobile screens. They’re too small and require interaction to see countries like Switzerland. At NZZ, we wondered if we could come up with a design that works better.
In order to rethink thematic world maps, the team has identified the most typical types of maps they use: A) “Glorified Lists” and B) “Spatial Distribution Maps”. They came up with two new solutions:
In a large user study, we showed that our redesigned world map improves readability – especially for small countries. We also found that using bubbles sized according to population, rather than land area, led to interpretations that more accurately reflected the underlying data.
So both map types performed their function better than the baseline. But despite the improved functionality, the second map type proved not very popular:
Still, many readers commented that the bubble map was hard to read. A few added that it was more informative, but overall, the map remains unpopular. We’ve received similar feedback internally, even when the reasoning behind the design is explained.
A tough, but maybe not uncommon, problem of conveying spatial information.