Original subtitles

Another control on map design is reality.

That's something that we all have to deal with.

So, might as well.

What we mean by reality is the spatial characteristics of

the area and how that will affect how it will be mapped.

So, I like these examples here is that there's no getting around the fact that Chile is

a very long skinny country and doesn't fit

onto a regular sheet of paper very easily or even if you're doing it on a screen,

I guess if you're on a phone in portrait mode maybe that would work,

but it's pretty challenging to work with.

It's how do you pack a lot of information onto that map if I wanted to show

the capital cities or mountain ranges or

road networks because it's so long and skinny that's going make it challenging.

So, that's the reality that we have though.

We can't change that. If I'm making a map of

that country that's what I have to deal with.

There is options you could do things like perhaps cut it in

half and make it into two parts on a page something like that.

It's not ideal, but that might work.

Another example of reality is the Hawaiian islands.

You can't get around the fact that these islands are

of varying sizes and they're spread apart,

and same problem is that if you wanted to have a lot of information on one of

these islands or in fact let's try one of the smaller ones like these ones.

If you wanted to put in towns and roads and whatever things like that,

in order to put them in their proper geographic location,

but be able to pack all that information into it is going to be really difficult.

So, again you might do something like divide these up into a separate map.

So, this would be one map.

Maybe you'd have a second map for this location.

Maybe this for a third map or insects on the same map something like that.

So, there are options to work with.

But this is part of the control is that you have to make

these decisions about okay where am I mapping? How am I going to work with it?

If you happen to live in an area that's a perfect square or rectangle, lucky you.

But in a lot of situations there are

unusual shapes and sizes and things like that we have to contend with.

Another control is available data.

What this means is that you want to make a map of

particular area does that GIS data already exist or not?

If it does what's the quality of that data?

Is it as complete as you would like?

Is it as recent as you would like?

Are there are values that are missing?

Were the measurements done poorly?

These are the kinds of things that can affect the quality of your outputs.

So, you have to make decisions about well is this data good enough for me?

Is that the only data I have?

Do I have the time and money to go collect my own data or buy it from somebody else?

Again, this is a control that we have to contend with in any project,

is how good or bad is the data that we're going to use for our map.

The scale of the map is important for

map design and this is again a control that we have to just deal with.

So, if I'm making a map of Canada that's going to have

a very different set of design questions than if I was making a map of a small area

like a lake like this in this case Lake Simcoe and one of the things I'm trying to

show here is that that's actually not a suitable dataset to be used with that map scale.

So, we might have to find a different dataset to use with that same map scale.

So, the scale of the map in other words the geographic area that

you're going to map whether it's a the world, a continent,

or a country, state, province, city, neighborhood,

that's going to have an effect on your design in terms of how you put things together.

So, smaller scale maps are going to have less detail,

larger scale maps are going to have more detail,

and you'll have to contend with that as you make your map.

It's very important to take your audience into

consideration when you're making your map just as if you

were writing a newspaper article or you're writing a book or making a movie,

you're thinking about who are the people that are going to see this?

Who am I making this map for? What is their background?

What kind of characteristics do they have in terms of;

it could be age or language or education or familiarity with the geographic area.

All of those things will lead to to audience.

So, the map should be easy to understand for that audience.

Is your audience familiar with the area?

That's actually a key question because you can get away with

a lot less labeling and

detail on a map if you know that your audience is familiar with that location.

If I for example just drew.

This is a really simple example,

but if I drew something like that.

That's a really bad example but you

hopefully maybe you would see that that's meant to be the line of Italy.

Maybe not. I tried.

But the idea is that,

if there's things that are really familiar to somebody.

Maybe it's Manhattan or Washington DC or Paris or I don't know the outline of Australia.

Whatever it is, if it's something that people are familiar with,

you don't necessarily have to put a lot of information

packed in there to make it clear to people that that's what it is.

Now, if it's a more general audience that doesn't know

that area well then you will have to put more information in there.

It's also important to know their level of training.

Are you making a map for a scientific audience,

or maybe not such a scientific audience,

and actually even if it is a scientific audience It doesn't mean that they necessarily

know that particular topic or that subject or that geographic area.

So again, think about who you're making this map for.

What is their background?

How familiar are they with the area?

And with it the subject itself,

and take that into consideration when you're designing your map.