complex – Map UI Patterns

Chart marker

WHAT The chart marker pattern uses charts to enrich aggregated data or to visualize a second attribute of clustered data. Adding tiny charts to the map is a powerful visualization technique to communicate additional aspects of the data. WHY It’s easy to symbolize a single observation through color, shape, or size, but as soon as […]

Cluster marker

WHAT The cluster marker pattern is a common method to avoid visual clutter by grouping points together, and many apps that display point data benefit from this pattern. Cluster marker differentiates overlapping features that are difficult to distinguish and interact with. WHY Data layers can have any number of point features, and it is almost […]

Spatial filter

WHAT The spatial filter pattern reduces available features by selecting a specific geographic region or area of interest. WHY Location, location, location is not only the mantra in real estate but also true for most consumer apps in which location is what people care about the most. This location can be a place or any […]

Attribute filter

WHAT The attribute filter pattern reduces large datasets into more meaningful and manageable selections based on attribute criteria. WHY Filters are omnipresent in modern apps and, like search, are the most important mechanism to find the data that best suits a user’s needs. Search aims at finding a particular place, object, or group of objects […]

Data dimming

WHAT The map contains too many features so that it is difficult to identify them, distinguish them, pick out relationships, see patterns in the distribution. WHY The same location might be occupied by multiple features of different types and therefore visually obscure their existence. Data Dimming helps highlighting related features that are otherwise difficult to […]

Extent-driven content

WHAT The extent-driven content pattern synchronizes content in the UI with the map extent. It describes how the map can be used as a dynamic spatial filter that updates other content on the page as the map extent changes. WHY Data can be visualized in many ways. The most common visualization components are charts, tables, […]