Wednesday, June 04, 2014

A Story Map for D-Day


This story map of the  role of the Canadian army in the Allied invasion on Normandy during D-Day isn't the greatest map in the world. However I do think it provides the basis for a great template for a narrative map.

CTV News' Remembering D-Day provides a chronological mapped tour of some of the important events in the Canadian army's advance during the allied invasion. The map uses the scroll function to progress through the narrative of the day's events. As you scroll down the page the relevant information in the map-sidebar is highlighted and the map moves to the discussed location.

I like the highlighting of the relevant text in the map sidebar. The map could have been made a little more interesting with more movement on the map, possibly using animated polylines and some closer zooming on the mapped locations.

The use of the scroll bar to progress through the narrative also means that you can't use your mouse-wheel to scroll in and out on the map. So the map would also benefit from including some zoom controls.

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