Rationalize multiple "locate me" type functions

[pnorman]

Currently we have 3 functions which serve to locate where the user is in some way, each which work differently and each which serve different purposes

1: "home", goes to the users home location and places a marker
2: "Show me where I am", arrow-type icon that uses geolocation to place a blue dot and uncertainty circle
3: "Where am I?", uses nominatim/geonames/etc to reverse geocode the current location.

It's important to remember that home != current location.

Each has issues:

1. Requires the user to be logged in and home location set, and probably not the most useful on a mobile device where you'd be more interested in what's around you right now
2. Relies on geolocation, which can suck, and in my case puts an uncertainty so large it zooms me out to z9. If you're away from home and want to look at home, it may not do what you want
3. Somewhat misleadingly named, it's not where are you, it's where are you looking at.

Each also has strengths

1. Precise. Doesn't require going through browser geolocation.
2. Good for mobile devices which will often have better geolocation than desktops and where you probably want a map of your surroundings more often
3. The only obvious way to reverse geocode. Useful for when you get a link to somewhere but don't know exactly where.

For what it's worth, I probably use 3 the most by far, followed by 1. I probably won't switch to 2 because as you can see in the screenshot, geolocation is crap for my desktop.

I don't have some wondrous design that fixes everything, but I figure listing the strengths and weaknesses of the three options is a place to start.

[lxbarth]

I suggest we kill "show me where I am". I don't see the user story for it, oddball feature. Am I missing something?

[jfirebaugh]

Removing it was previously discussed in #85. I'm in favor of removing it -- I always just zoom out to see where I am.

[pnorman]

For me zooming out doesn't work, it is often hard to see the name of the region and province you are in from the map.

I frequently have to go from a changeset to the map to a reverse geocode.

That being said, I recognize my use is a specialized one.

Some more facts:

I got the hits for June on the various geocoder URLs

URL                                 hits
/geocoder/search_osm_nominatim    1,019,096
/geocoder/search                    888,042
/geocoder/search_geonames           813,151
/geocoder/search_latlon              36,398
/geocoder/description                 9,363
/geocoder/description_osm_nominatim   9,316
/geocoder/description_geonames        9,280
/geocoder/search_uk_postcode          7,392
/geocoder/search_us_postcode          5,316
/geocoder/search_ca_postcode            608
other                                    19

Just for reference, I think there are 103,927 hits on browse map data.

search probably gets more hits per use with people trying multiple searches to get what they want while description won't get multiple hits per use, but still probably a 200:1 to 750:1 use difference between them.

I think it is important to keep some way to reverse geocode, so how about this? Right now if you leave the search box blank and hit enter you get back nothing from Nominatim and a meaningless list of results from GeoNames. Instead what about doing a reverse geocode, like the "Where am I?" link does right now.

[woodpeck]

Given that we're making a web site for mappers, the reverse geocoding use case is perhaps not that useless; it gives you instant feedback on whether all the administrative boundaries are in the right place for the place you're viewing. Maybe the problem is just in the cheeky label - the "where am I" button has never shown you where you are, just what you were looking at. It should really be "reverse geocode current map view" - now we just need a way to say that in three short words.

[pnorman]

The best I can think of is "Where's this?"

An alternative is "Where am I looking at?", or what I suggested for a blank search

[jfirebaugh]

If we're going to keep it, we should find a better place for this and other less commonly used commands to live. A context menu could work well, and the requested "center the map at this point" command would fit there too. Another that I would find handy is "Request tile rerender".

[pnorman]

A new menu is probably a longer term fix. For the short term, how about just changing "Where am I?" to "Where's this?".

It doesn't change the feature, but gives it a more accurate name.

[brycenesbitt]

Proposal: start by changing arrow icon #2A to a "geolocation" icon (a circle with compass points and a dot in the middle). Then it will match the icon that appears in the title bar of browsers like Chrome. The purpose of the control I think becomes much more apparent.

The text "Show me where I am?" is also a bit troubling. That's very mobile centric wording and might not make sense to a desktop user. As a desktop user I already know where I am, why would I ask? "Center map on my current location" is a bit more universal. The feature is useful both for desktop and mobile, if properly framed.

Proposal: don't draw an uncertainty ring around the "home" location, as that location is not uncertain.

Proposal: remove all controls from the sidebar/frame. Especially with the new controls, those appear as the "go to" location to get something done. Having sidebar links affect the map is unexpected.

[samanpwbb]

A goal of all this should be to identify how people want to use geolocation, and then provide them the best solution while improving the focus of openstreetmap.org. This helps make the site easier to use and understand. I recommend we:

• Remove the 'home' link from the header. You can find out what your home location is through your profile page.
• Remove the 'where am I?' text in the left sidebar. Make available by exposing this result if user searches for "my location" or "home" or a related term in the search box. This could even be suggested in the dropdown when you attempt a fresh search.
• Leave the geolocation tool in the sidebar.

[ajashton]

For comparison, Google's equivalent of the the "Where am I?" feature is accessed by clicking on exactly what you want described. In the classic interface this was a right-click + context menu, in the new interface it's simply a left click. I think this is better than having to search for magic keywords.

[gravitystorm]

Please don't remove the 'home' link. The use-case isn't to "find out what your home location is" - the use-case is to move the map to your home location.

Most of the time that I use the map, I need it for something close to my home. Such are the physical realities of life. But with the location cookie the map is often somewhere entirely elsewhere, and having a one-click link to re-centre the map on the location I most need it, is very useful.

Note that the geolocation tool is different, since (like cookie-set locations) it doesn't move the map in a directly-controllable fashion.

[jfirebaugh]

@gravitystorm You can of course create a bookmark with your home location (or work location, or any other location you frequently access). The current behavior of OSM.org permalinks isn't great -- if you move the map, and refresh, it resets the location -- but if that were fixed a la #378, would you still have a strong preference for the "home" link?

[samanpwbb]

New way to think about the problem: how can we accommodate all the ways people use geolocation while increasing cohesion in the UI? Need to think.

[pnorman]

Only the "Show me where I am" feature is about geolocation, I'd be wary of lumping the geolocation and non-geolocation features together.

[pnorman]

Proposal: don't draw an uncertainty ring around the "home" location, as that location is not uncertain

We don't draw one around home, just around the geolocation

[EdLoach]

I use the "home" link a lot. Not just on my computer either, so a bookmark might not be a solution in all cases. However, if the home link is only visible to users who have logged in and set their home location, what harm is it doing? Or does it also show for logged in users who haven't set their location, and redirect them to their profile to set it?

[pnorman]

Resolved with #498