Gratuitous Hovering
The Long and Winding Road
As a result of an unbroken series of mishaps that began well before dawn, I am only now beginning today’s attempt to batter out a cogent post that meets the goal of being at least arguably affiliated with something reminiscent of a redeeming social value.
As it turns out, I’m willing to settle for posting my whine of the day, especially since its subject is one of the 17,213 reasons I never quite caught up with today’s projected timetable .
I was scheduled for a medical procedure in a nearby town at a facility with which I’m semi-familiar. Because of the recent snow which made travel especially treacherous for anyone with my non-existent navigational skills, I realized it might be wise to review the route on a cartographical representation of the sort found on the wonderfully weird and wacky World Wide Web.
Time was tight, but how long could it take?
I Googled the healthcare system by its name plus the town and state where it’s located, clicked on the top entry that had “locations” in the title, and ended up at the map shown below:
The playfulness built into the map is indicated by the legend; one is to hover the cursor over a “pulsating dot”1 to bring up a small window with information about the healthcare facility to that position.
At least the site was functional. Holding the cursor over a sensuously throbbing spot revealed the kind of flag displayed in the lower right of the map below.
So, What’s The Problem?
Well, because I couldn’t immediately recall the hospital’s cross streets - which was why I was looking at a map - there were at least a half-dozen dots that could have been the right place. And the only way to find which dot was the correct one was trial and error.
This wasn’t a map - it was a memory game.
Or that one.
Or this … oops, didn’t I try that dot already?
Where was I … Damn, now I have to start over.
[Repeat infinitely]
Given that I was behind schedule when I started this ostensible map check, the “hover to read” process was as delightful, charming, and useful as tossing bowling balls 10 feet in the air and catching them in ones teeth.
Moreover, as far as I can determine, this is not just a case of a tool not being well suited to my particular task - I find it difficult to come up with any mapping situation for it which this set-up would be the optimal solution compared to, oh say, A Map.2
You Sunk My Outpatient Center
On the other hand, you change some of those dots to frigates, mines, submarines, and such, and you’ve got yourself a fairly entertaining, geographically specific version of Battleship.3
That’s all for now. You can, I suspect, look forward to more fine whines at another time and in another post.
Footnotes
- Am I the only one who finds “pulsating dot” provocative? Or was I the only one who found “pulsating dot” provocative until you read the preceding sentence? ~back~
- A non-mappng situation that uses this mechanism to good effect is the Netflix site, which identifies movies by their DVD cover art; additional details are provided when the cursor hover over one of those movie designations. ~back~
- As a bonus of convenience, war strategy games like Battleship are a handy way to sublimate aggressive fantasies of the sort generated by the cursor-hovering requirement ~back~
Only you could turn a rant of frustration into a great idea for an internet map game. Glad that you made it there, and back.
Comment by Mary — February 8, 2008 @ 5:47 pm