Distinguish between the selection of Cities, Regions and Countries (and the magnifying glass…)

[jsgblom]

When trying to select a region sometimes a major city is selected instead. When a city is selected a magnifier glass icon is displayed. I think the magnifying glass is not really helpful, since it makes the selection of regions more difficult sometimes. (Unintentionally zooming in to a city happens often to me.) Especially with a country that has small regions and many cities (like the netherlands). 

I would vote for not to be able to select cities from the map at a certain zoom level, and not to be able to select regions when zoomed in a bit further. So to distinguish the selection of cities versus regions a bit more. The same goes for selected countries versus regions at ‘in between’ zoom levels (although this is easier to handle).

 

[GeoMagik]

This is actually how it used to work a long time ago, but because countries can vary wildly in size and so do regions and cities, it makes it too difficult to select many items.  We changed from that to a more complex size/population/proximity based selection system which we found worked much better.  Not saying there isn’t still room for improvement but this is the best we have been able to do so far. 

[GeoMagik]

Magnifying glass is maybe not very useful. Not sure this whole select via map feature is even that useful?  Other apps just force the user to use the menu All Maps screen to access this info and download maps.

[jsgblom]

I find country and region selection in the map useful, but selecting a city is a bit tricky. Often I select a city unintentionally. On top of that unintentionally tapping the magnifying glass is annoying sometimes. 

[jsgblom]

Selecting area’s (city / region / country) in the map works better now. Nice touch to switch of city selection on higher zoom levels, although I think that city selection could be switched off completely, especially on the iPhone. As you say, using the menu is a good option to download cities. The magnifying glass works better now but especially on the iPhone it is sometimes a little annoying that a city is selected while you did not intend to. And when you unintentionally tap the magnifying glass, it is even more annoying. (I see it happening with some of my older participants in my PE course, who are new to touch screens and are not that handy with it yet.)

Selecting regions is really helpful though! When cycling a long distance route across multiple countries or regions it is really helpful to just select the regions or country along the route. 

This brings me to another issue: see my other discussion Downloading maps along a route/track: extend the margin

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