Welcome to Web Map Reviews 101
This review file was prepared by Zale Schafer for Dr. Michael Peterson's Advanced Cartographic Methods Class
Static Maps:
The Static maps I located are of the Cape York Peninsula in Australia. I think that they are not too bad, except for the fact that they are a little too small a scale for the screen. Due to the fact that they are static, they can't be "zoomed" for close-ups and/or clarity.
The colors used are fairly good, with appropriate colors being used for the data being presented.
Map of Cape York Peninsula, Australia
Map of Geologic Sites and Landforms of Significance, Cape York Peninsula
Map of Research Locations of Conservation Significance, Cape York Peninsula
A Listing of Other Cape York Peninsula Maps
Interactive maps:
The interactive maps I found are as follows:
The first is basically an index map of the topographic sheets (available for sale) covering Australia. You will discover that when you click on a given sheet, it takes you not to a close-up of the sheet (which is what you might expect) but rather to a file that lists the information about that topographic sheet. I found this to be a little annoying, since it would be much more useful to see the area covered before deciding to order these items. Other than that, it is a fairly straightforward index map.
Index Map of Topographic Maps of Australia
The second interactive map is a directory-type map of Kansas State University. It offers two options for finding a building on the map: Clicking on the building, or clicking on the link to an alphabetical listing of the campus buildings. The first click on the main map "zooms" you in to a slightly more detailed section of the large map.
With either option, the link for each building goes to a file that has a photo and brief description of the building. This might seem nice at first, but I discovered that it isn't actually as useful as it might look. If you know the name of the building but not the location, the only way to find it through the click-on-the-map option is to keep clicking buildings until you get lucky - it doesn't tell you which building you've clicked until after it has linked to the photo/description file.
If you choose the alphabetical option, it takes you directly to the photo/description file, but it never shows you where the building is on the map. For someone who wants to get to know every single building on the campus this might be okay, but if you're trying to locate a specific building on the map it can be very frustrating.
As far as the actual map design goes, I liked the oblique view on the maps, as this gives the viewer a sense of actually being in the space above the campus, and I thought the colors used were appropriate. It could, however, use a North Arrow, since north is NOT at the top of the map.
Campus Map of Kansas State University
Animated Maps:
In looking for animated maps, I located a single site that has several animated maps of the Pacific/Antarctic ocean ridge. The nicest thing about this site is that they offer the animations in both MPEG and Quicktime formats. I thought the colors used were well chosen, and the surrounding blackness around each map conveys the feeling of being on the bottom of the ocean very well.
Animations of the Pacific/Antarctic Ridge