Topic: IMT, boundaries and layers
I have tonight found the first real advantage I have seen so far in the new Gateway, but it took a while to get there, floundering through the morass of unnecessary, inconsistent and misleading links and buttons that characterises the new site.
If I am looking at a species distribution in the IMT, I am invited to ‘Add species , habitats and site boundaries to the map’. Since I wanted to add an SSSI boundary, I found the specific SSSI in the list, clicked, and apart from a zoom in no boundary appeared. After some experimentation, I discovered that before I could see the boundary, I had to add the layer ‘Sites of Scientific Interest in Scotland’ (sic - not SSSI, which is used in some entries; it took a while before it dawned on me that the abbreviation was not matching what I wanted).
Suggestion 1 - if you invite people to add a boundary, and you offer a specific SSSI from the start, please assume that anyone choosing it will want to see a boundary. Solution - if an SSSI is selected, the *software* should generate the necessary layer, not rely on the user to waste even more time on it, then zoom to the chosen site. Ditto for SPA, SAC, NNR etc.
Suggestion 2 - include ‘SSSI’ in the options list wherever the full name appears in an option so that it matches ‘SSSI’ in the filter box. Ditto for SPA, SAC, NNR etc.
Now here is something you never thought you would read from me - that facility is great, and allowed me to do something that I could not do even through the SNH site. But (it had to come) I still had to adjust the opacity manually to see the topography beneath the turqoise blob, so:
Suggestion 3 - I have suggested this before elsewhere - please set the colours by default with reduced opacity, and any other settings that mean we don’t always have to guddle with the toolbox to get a display that is helpful.
And a final question - why does it take two clicks to get from the home page to the IMT when one click would be simpler for everyone?
M.