I asked them to draw their view of the map and they drew a version with the America in the left, Europe & Africa in the middle and Asia & Australia off to the right. It was a really fascinating moment understanding how we viewed the world so differently and how we used different cues to work out where the continents were situated. Perhaps they so strongly associate with being 'the Western World' that the Americas and Europe could only ever be on the left.
They thought I was nuts and my version was just an idiosyncratic preference until a few days later when we were auditing a whole range of international websites and one, from Japan, featured the world map with the continent layout exactly how I had drawn it.
It blew their minds. We decided that if this firm we're designing the site for really wanted to come off as global then perhaps we should use a different projection of the world.
How do you draw the world map?
5 comments:
I have no idea how I do mine, but I asked my work mate to draw one and she did it the same as yours!
Australia always goes in the middle of my map - I'm going to test it at work tomorrow though :)
Myf
I learned that Australia goes in the middle but that's definately (and obviously) not the way other think of it. Why not do a globe for your client, can't get that one wrong way around. Some sort of mouseover to turn left or right and then a click on the spot you want to zoom/go to. Kinda like those flash navigations that always seem to go too fast or slow, where your cursor on the right side of the page moves the nav to the right.
I totally agree that Aussie should be in the middle - we are the most important nation after all (to us anyhow). Besides, it looks better that way - more balanced. Isn't that what we need more of - more balance.
I have also realised (thanks to your post) that the Aussie world view is why IOhad trouble thinking that flying JFK-Heathrow would be anything shorter than a mammoth flying-around-the-corner-of-the-map expedition. Once you switch your world biew, it is a relatively short straight line! Thanks for straightening this out.
Post a Comment