Should we reverse the world map?

[RJN]

I am thinking of reversing the world map that occurs on the main nightskylive.net page. Instead of the present image that looks like this:
the new "reverse" image would look like this:


Why would we do this? It gives a better intuitive feel for exactly what CONCAMs see. With the reversed world map, clicking on a CONCAM asterisk can be visualized as flying out from under the Earth and going through that CONCAM and then looking out from the Earth and seeing what thay CONCAM sees. This might make NSL images easier to understand.

Any thoughts on this?

- rjn

[lior]

I think the world map should be reversed. It looks strange at first, but I think it makes people understand faster what NSL does. Besides, it's a nice gimmick.

[jpoliver]

[quote="lior"]I think the world map should be reversed. It looks strange at first, but I think it makes people understand faster what NSL does. Besides, it's a nice gimmick.[/quote]

I can not see how a non-intuitive reversed mercator projection would make the polar projection concam images easier to understand. Please clarify.

[lior]

Well, the world map is indeed highly non-intuitive, but it makes one think about it, eventually realizing that NSL "looks" from earth up. I'm not quite sure about this, but the reversed map might make visitors try to figure out what NSL actually is. Perhaps my argument is rather weak, but I know that if I saw this web site for the first time, it would make me wonder...

[jpoliver]

[quote="lior"]Well, the world map is indeed highly non-intuitive, but it makes one think about it, eventually realizing that NSL "looks" from earth up. I'm not quite sure about this, but the reversed map might make visitors try to figure out what NSL actually is. Perhaps my argument is rather weak, but I know that if I saw this web site for the first time, it would make me wonder...[/quote]

I think if you ask experts in web page design they would tell you that a web page that makes the first time visitor "wonder" in terms of being non-intuitive is a web page that does not get a second look.

[TJ]

Well, the world map is indeed highly non-intuitive, but it makes one think about it, eventually realizing that NSL "looks" from earth up. I'm not quite sure about this, but the reversed map might make visitors try to figure out what NSL actually is. Perhaps my argument is rather weak, but I know that if I saw this web site for the first time, it would make me wonder...

I think if you ask experts in web page design they would tell you that a web page that makes the first time visitor "wonder" in terms of being non-intuitive is a web page that does not get a second look.

I would have to agree here. Reversing the map has some benefits, but most users are going to try to locate a concam on some continent using traditional east-west map reading skills. Furthermore, if you really wanted the effect of looking out at the sky, I think the concam markers would have to be on the "back" side of the map. The continents would need to be semi-transparent to allow seeing the markers.

Still, some sort of inverted map (or better yet, a navigable globe) might be an interesting addition, but also one requiring significant development and resources.

-Dave