It has been a while since we have shared any of the fun interactive maps we’ve discovered across the web. We are always monitoring what others are putting out. Looking at others work challenges us to think about our product in new ways. Something that we see quite frequently is interactive maps of the U.S. displaying all sorts of fun data. We’ve always thought of our platform as more of a marketing “eye candy” tool than a tool for displaying large gobs of data, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t get good UI/UX ideas from playing with these maps. Here are two recent fun interactive U.S. maps for you.
FlightRadar24.com Live Air Traffic Map
We know that there is always a plane in the sky, but nobody realizes just how many planes are flying around at any given time. This live streaming data map from FlightRader24 does exactly what it says it does. It is a live air traffic map. That’s right, you can view thousands of planes in the air at any given time. The filter, settings and search functionalities are all really clean and fun to play with.
Besides being a mind blowing experience to realize there are that many people in the air right now, we felt like the additional functionalities of the filter and search were really well put together. Not only are they useful but they also have a very strong design.
Census Dotmap
I think we have all seen those views of space at night that show the coasts of North America all lit up. The center of the country always looks black and void in comparison. This Census Dotmap doesn’t look all that different, but instead of using lights at night it has a dot for every single person counted in the 2010 U.S. and 2011 Canadian censuses. That is 341,817,095 dots to be exact. There are no filters, search or settings on this map besides the ability to toggle on city, states, roads and boundaries. The smooth transitions and the ability to zoom into the level where you can almost find your little black dot is a fun discovery process.
This map, like the previous one, is built on top of Google Maps. One thing that we are always impressed with on their platform is the fluidity and speed when moving around the map. It is easy to forget just how much data must be manipulated to display these interactive maps. Google has always done a great job with their smooth transitions and their powerful tile serving capabilities.