Apologies if this has been discussed before (I tried searching but can’t find any mention of it).
The current position of the species list on the Explore/Observations page has it hovering over the map. This is annoying because observations that are included in the list can be covered up by the list. It would be much more practical and user-friendly to rearrange the page so that the map takes up only a portion of the page width, with the remaining width occupied by the list.
Current layout with species list blocking some of the map:
yes please! If you make this a feature request i think i’d even rustle up one of my precious votes for it. This is a large part of why i don’t use that page so much, especially on a smaller computer screen
While we’re moving things off the map, it sure would be nice to move the Place of Interest box off the map too. With both things hovering over the map there’s not much map left and you can’t actually see the places because they’re under the box.
I fully agree, I think it would be much more practical to have the species list as a sidebar, and I would also agree with moving the Places of Interest button someplace else as it isn’t directly linked to map layers, etc., and personally, I have never even used it.
I agree, the species list and map control overlays should be responsive enough to stick to the sides of the map view rather than be fixed in place in the middle of it. I’ve often wondered why they aren’t.
Since updating the Explore page is already on the team agenda there’s no need to make this a Feature Request. We’ll definitely take it into account when we’re looking at a re-design.
Excellent topic! In my day job I do a lot of map-making and information-designing. A fundamental principle of both cartography and info-design is to NOT cover up, hide, or obscure your data. So I’ve been mystified as to why iNat covers up so much of its maps, making it difficult to see locations in the observations list. Yes, please, move the observations list off the map area into a sidebar. Thanks!
I’m late to this discussion, but here’s a related request: the ability to draw a box on the map as the bounding box for a search.
Currently, if I want to search for observations in a given non-standardised region (say, Southern Italy), I need to zoom into it, then fiddle with the size of my browser’s window to get a good shape, then do “Redo search on map” (map which, as discussed above, is half covered by the species list):
