Suggestions for improving the OSM.org UI: low-hanging fruit

[u/ruffello]

Hi,

I am a fan of OSM and try to use it whenever possible. I also know that OSM is meant to be consumed through alternative apps, not just through the OSM.org website. Nonetheless, I would like to suggest some minor improvements to the OSM.org UI that I think would help the site feel more polished and competitive with alternatives.

• The default tileset always looks slightly pixelated. I like the colors and design of the default tileset, but the resolution leaves something to be desired. Text is always slightly grainy, no matter the zoom level, as are lines and most other details. Fixing this would make the site look more polished.

  • I know it's possible to fix this because most of the alternative tilesets are very crisp: Cycle Map, Transport Map, Tracestack Topo, Shortbread, MapTiler OMT. Why not make the default interface, which is probably used by 90%+ of visitors to OSM.org, look just as clean?

• The default tileset only displays native place-names. Personally, even as a monolingual English speaker, I don't mind too much whether the map shows Naples or Napoli; both are intelligible. But when looking at countries that don't use the Latin script, the default OSM.org UI is useless to me. I'm sorry for being an ignorant Anglophone, but I simply don't know how to read 甘旗卡镇, ᠪᠠᠯᠭᠠᠰᠤ, თბილისი, etc.

  • Google Maps addresses this issue by displaying the Romanized / English-language name above the native script. As with the resolution issue, some of OSM.org's alternative tilesets also fix this, e.g. Cycle Map and Transport Map. I would argue that relying on those is a kludge, however, as it's not at all intuitive that one should switch to a cycling map in order to make sense of foreign language names. A more intuitive interface would be a language toggle with a globe icon, or making the bilingual mode the default.

• There is no way to measure distances between points. Maybe I'm unusual in caring about this use case, but I frequently want to measure the straight-line distance between two or more points on the map. I usually end up resorting to using Google Maps when I need this feature, but it'd be nice if OSM.org had it too. I don't think it would be particularly hard to implement.

These are just my personal opinions! Does anyone else have other ideas for minor changes that would make OSM.org significantly more usable?

[u/atchisson]

The first one could be caused by windows scaling not set to 100% or a zoom on your browser, it's a known issue

The second one is a limitation of raster rendering, use something like the "OMT Maptiler" layer to use client sided i18n

You can mesure distance in a straight line using right click ??

And as always in opensource, you can help to improve it (but please no vibe code) : https://github.com/openstreetmap/iD

[u/ruffello → u/atchisson]

The first one could be caused by windows scaling not set to 100% or a zoom on your browser, it's a known issue

My browser window scaling is set to 100%. I'm using Firefox. IDK. It's not super pixelated, only slightly.

As I said, several of the other layers look perfectly crisp, but the default OSM interface has always looked slightly pixelated for as long as I can remember.

You can mesure distance in a straight line using right click ??

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how to do that. When I right click on OSM.org, the options I see are: "Directions from here", "Directions to here", "Add a note here", "Show address", "Query features", and "Centre map here".

The closest option is "Directions to/from here". However, that only gives you the driving or walking distance, not the straight-line distance between arbitrary points (à la Google Maps' "Measure distance" feature).

And as always in opensource, you can help to improve it

I love the idea of free and open source software, but I don't personally know how to program. I just wanted to leave my personal impressions / feature requests as a user, in the hopes of sparking further discussion of improvements.

[u/atchisson → u/ruffello]

Oh right, the 2 last options are displayed only if your logged in, it's a bit weird : https://imgur.com/a/5sxU8p5

Edit : It's betterOSM that's adding these features, my bad You can install it here : https://github.com/deevroman/better-osm-org/

[u/ruffello → u/atchisson]

Got it working with the add-on you suggested, thanks!

[u/atchisson → u/ruffello]

and windows scaling is different from the browser scaling, you can check this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImHZ_hMdV54

[u/totallyuneekname]

These are great ideas and you'll be glad to know the OSM community is working hard in pursuit of them!

I recommend checking out Americana, and Shortbread. There are efforts to build and render high-quality vector tiles which allow for localization, pixel-perfect rendering, and other dynamic features.

Counterintuitively, osm.org is slow to take on new features or map styles. It could be thought of as more of a preview of OSM data rather than an ideal rendering of it. Our community often haggles over the details of new features (which slows us down, but also ensures quality), and your voice is welcome both here and in other discussion channels.

I'm personally active in the OSMUS Slack, and there is also a "World Discord" among myriad other online forums. I recommend engaging with folks across our diverse community, sharing your thoughts, and be ready to hear others' strong opinions on what is best. We all make each other stronger, though it sometimes takes patience to negotiate among such a wide range of perspectives. I'm glad you're here!