8 replies to this topic

[Hans van der Maarel]

Here's something I whipped up today. It's just a little thing I did for fun, nobody asked me to do this...

The coming few years are going to be hell on the Dutch roads. Roadworks everywhere (which are not going to cause any more traffic jams... yeah right...). There's a website with some flash maps to inform people of this, that's where I got the data from.

 versie1.pdf   394.27K   227 downloads

The map is totally in Dutch, but hopefully the design speaks for itself. Please be gentle

[ELeFevre]

Hans,

Here are a few gentle suggestions:

1. I would try toning down the black stroke around the (Provinces?).
You could also smooth and generalize these boundaries a bit in AI.

2. Perhaps a color other than blue would be effective at showing the Roadworks areas...and the frustration (living hell) that goes along with waiting in traffic. How about an orange or red (semi-transparent) stroke against a light gray background rather than the green one? or something like that:)

3. You could think about ways of incorporating information on the fastest alternative routes for commuters?

4. The numerical road identifiers could use a boost in font size and perhaps a "Fat Positive" as describe by Nick: Here.

Nice work Hans. Dutch commuters are going to love you!

[Hans van der Maarel]

1. I would try toning down the black stroke around the (Provinces?).
You could also smooth and generalize these boundaries a bit in AI.

I actually left them in during development so I could orient myself (I didn't have any GIS data on the roadworks, just crude per-province maps) with the idea of leaving them out. Totally forgot to do that.

2. Perhaps a color other than blue would be effective at showing the Roadworks areas...and the frustration (living hell) that goes along with waiting in traffic. How about an orange or red (semi-transparent) stroke against a light gray background rather than the green one? or something like that:)

Good point. My initial draft did have bright red for the roadworks and orange for the timeline, but I decided to go for this scheme. Now that you mention it, Red/Orange on light grey would work very well.

3. You could think about ways of incorporating information on the fastest alternative routes for commuters?

That's easy: there aren't any...

Earlier this week I spent some time in #18, which is close to where I live. I had to visit a client just across the bridge. It took me 90 minutes to do that 15-mile strecht. I am not kidding you.

Being such a water-rich country means we have a lot of chokepoints: river crossings.

4. The numerical road identifiers could use a boost in font size and perhaps a "Fat Positive" as describe by Nick: Here.

Nice work Hans. Dutch commuters are going to love you!

I'll try and make them more clear.

Probabely some stock photos of cars stuck in traffic would be a nice addition too, if used as a gentle backdrop.

[Rick Dey]

Hans,

What about a concept of incorporating the timeframe with a color gradient so that when looking at the map you would also get a reference to when the project was to be completed or to be undertaken. Granted projects like #7 that stretch over a 4 year timeline might be tough to figure out. Just a thought. But I do like the idea of a more irritating color than that cool soothing blue.

[Hans van der Maarel]

Rick,

I'm not really too keen on using a gradient to indicate time in the map itself, if that's what you mean. I can see it being a nice touch in the timeline itself though.

Version 2 attached, I incorporated most of the comments so far. It's nice to be able to work on a map a bit. I was just talking about that with some clients the other day...

 versie2.pdf   729.18K   142 downloads

Oh, and before I forget, thanks for the comments!

[frax]

nice, good improvements, except for the photo behind the legend. Is this much more works than previous years?

[Hans van der Maarel]

Hugo,

There's a couple of years of hard work behind us already, but 2006-2007 is actually announced as: "Now we're *really* going to get something done".

Due to 2 mega projects (high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris and a goods train from Rotterdam to Germany, both running right next to highways for long stretches) we've already had a lot of problems with roadworks.

[DaveB]

Looking good.

What do the question marks in 6, 22 and 23 mean in the timeline? That the timeframe is uncertain? Or the roadworks themselves are uncertain?

How about matching the colors in the legend with the colors on the map? (Although, if you're not mapping timeframes in some way then it wouldn't really be appropriate to use the lighter color just for 6, 22 and 23 if they are only that color because the timeframe is uncertain). Anyway, the red on the map looks a little darker than the red in the timeline/legend.

The background photo is almost too dark. Might be good to lighten it up a bit. (but maybe that's just me and my eyes; I often find non-uniform backgrounds behind text to be a bit distracting and can make the text harder to read)

[Hans van der Maarel]

Looking good.

What do the question marks in 6, 22 and 23 mean in the timeline? That the timeframe is uncertain? Or the roadworks themselves are uncertain?

How about matching the colors in the legend with the colors on the map? (Although, if you're not mapping timeframes in some way then it wouldn't really be appropriate to use the lighter color just for 6, 22 and 23 if they are only that color because the timeframe is uncertain). Anyway, the red on the map looks a little darker than the red in the timeline/legend.

The background photo is almost too dark. Might be good to lighten it up a bit. (but maybe that's just me and my eyes; I often find non-uniform backgrounds behind text to be a bit distracting and can make the text harder to read)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Dave,

Yeah, the question marks indicate that the timeframe of the roadworks is not known yet. I thought about using the same, lighter, color in the map as well, but decided against it. The way I see it, the only thing that's an unknown there is when it will happen. There's no doubt that it will happen, there (that is, as far as you can be certain about anything with our government...). Since I'm not mapping any time component for the other locations in the map itself, it seems odd to do it for just those three.

The red in the map and the timeline are the same, but I applied a light transparency to the timeline, so that somewhat affects the color. I've now removed that transparency and made the background photo lighter.