Revisiting HTML map use cases & requirements - Feedback needed!

Hello Maps for HTML group members,

My name is Amelia Bellamy-Royds. I'm an invited expert & spec editor in the
W3C's SVG, CSS, and ARIA working groups. Since January of this year, I've
been under contract to the Geomatics team at Natural Resources Canada
(Peter Rushforth's group), to help move forward with the Maps for HTML
proposals.

A big part of moving forward is convincing more people that the web would
be better with native support for interactive maps.  For that reason, one
of my major projects is to re-write and expand the "Use Cases and
Requirements" report.

Last Friday, we quietly posted the first part of my work online:
https://maps4html.github.io/HTML-Map-Element-UseCases-Requirements/
I'd now like to ask for your feedback.

The first thing you will notice is that the report is incomplete!  Most
sections are just placeholders.  But I hope there is enough included that
you can understand what I am trying to do.

Key goals of the report are to:

   - Show that web maps are a standard pattern on the web, and that there
   is clear consensus about what an interactive web map should do.
   - List, in detail, what features or capabilities are included in the
   standard web map.
   - Identify aspects of web maps that could be improved by having a
   built-in browser feature for web maps, instead of having to rely on
   JavaScript libraries.
   - Suggest areas of potential collaboration with people working on other
   web proposals.

The “Introduction”
<https://maps4html.github.io/HTML-Map-Element-UseCases-Requirements/#introduction>and
“Guiding Principles”
<https://maps4html.github.io/HTML-Map-Element-UseCases-Requirements/#principles>
sections of the draft report explain this in more detail.

Next step is to complete the missing sections & to discuss what should be
included or not.  Discussions should happen in GitHub issues, so that we
can keep them organized by topic & close the issue once changes are made:
https://github.com/Maps4HTML/HTML-Map-Element-UseCases-Requirements/issues/

I'll be opening some issues today to get the discussion started (actually,
Peter has already started a few discussions this week!), but I also want
many more contributions from you.

I'm looking for issues or suggestions on any of the following areas:

   - *Organization* — Does the structure of the report make sense? Can it
   be more clear?
   - *Use cases* — What are website authors and website users trying to *do*
   with a map?  I'll open up discussion issues for all the placeholder use
   cases I've included, but that's only the start.  I'm trying to describe the
   use case in very broad terms (like “Display pop-up HTML annotations about a
   map feature”) with specific real-world applications in the description.
   - *Example tools* — Which existing web maps should we review to show
   what is common (or at least possible) on the web today?
   - *Priorities / tags* — What factors should we use to measure whether
   something is “good for the web”?  What specific costs and benefits do we
   need to consider?
   - *Capabilities* —  What specific features/capabilities of the
   technology (browser or JS framework) are required to make a use case
   possible? Is this capability already common in web maps (using the example
   tools as reference)? Are there problems with the way it is implemented in
   the example tools? Which tags apply? Should we consider this a requirement?
   Again, I've got some placeholders in the draft, and a few have detailed
   write-ups. But, those are all still open for discussion. And there are many
   more to include.

(Of course, typos & suggested fixes to the code are also welcome! You can
file an issue or make a pull request for those.)

I don't have the extensive background in cartography and spatial data that
many of you do. So I'm hoping for lots of contributions from the group to
help with that.  I will also be reaching out to contacts in the web
developer community, and the web standards / web browser communities, to
try to get more feedback from that side.  *Please also share the draft &
requests for feedback with your colleagues & contacts!*

The original use case report, that Peter wrote, is still online
<https://maps4html.github.io/HTML-Map-Element-UseCases-Requirements/draft-2015.html>
for
reference.  I want to eventually include all those ideas in the new report,
with the more rigorous structure.

Of course, feel free to get in touch with me directly if you have any
concerns or suggestions that you're not yet ready to share publicly.

Best regards,
Amelia Bellamy-Royds