On Sunday 14 June 2015, Sarah Hoffmann wrote: > The One Map we currently show caters mainly to the overrepresented > tech population (or, in the case of the HOT map, to NGOs) and that > gives the impression that the same is true for our data (which > isn't). So maybe both, the diversity movement and humanitarian > efforts should focus less on data collection and more on the data > representation, i.e. make specialised maps. Lots of them.
Yes, it is remarkable that we have all kinds of specialized, often local maps for certain purposes - hiking, sports of all kinds etc. covering subjects popular in 'developed' countries despite the fact that the main map already well addresses the needs of people there but hardly any maps that specifically target the needs of locals elsewhere. It is certainly much more difficult to teach people to create their own custom design maps in a self-determined way than it is to enable them to do mapping, it requires a much more abstract view both in terms of dealing with data and in terms of human perception in maps reading. This is also something that came through in the talk you linked to i think. What i would really like to see is developers and map designers getting to listen to and communicate with people with a more diverse cultural background. This is going to be hard though - getting a productive communication between a map designer and an average map user from for example Europe is already tough, working around wrong preconceptions, dealing with the problems of technical language etc. But doing this across significant cultural and geographical barriers is a whole other story. -- Christoph Hormann http://www.imagico.de/ _______________________________________________ talk mailing list talk@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk
