4 thoughts on “Add a street address to “Campus Maps” page

  1. Michael Roy

    Great idea! We’ll forward it on to our colleagues in Communications who run that particular part of our site. Of course we do have our worries about over-reliance on technology for getting around, witness the recent cautionary tale from England about a poor soul who nearly drove off a cliff when his GPS told him to drive through a retaining wall.

  2. Ian McBride

    I’d also point out that the street address for every building on campus is listed on the Campus Map: http://go.middlebury.edu/map?google and, when you select a building by clicking on the bubble on the map or by selecting it from the Locations drop down, we pre-populate the address in a form you can use to get driving directions.

  3. Carrie Macfarlane Post author

    Thanks Ian, that’s a nice feature. It doesn’t really do what I’m suggesting, though. I want to give campus visitors, in particular prospective students, a street address to type into the GPS units in their cars. Prospective students might know that they need to go to Admissions, but if they find their way to the Google Map and notice the “Locations” drop-down menu, they won’t find “Admissions” in the menu because there is no entry for “Admissions.” Rather, it’s called “Emma Willard House.” The blue bubbles won’t help because a visitor would need to know where Admissions is in order to use them.

    The PDF map does translate “Admissions” to “Emma Willard House,” but it doesn’t give a street address. The “Accessible/Text” map translates “Admissions” to “Emma Willard” and also gives a street address, but it’s the last map on the page and doesn’t really shout out its usefulness.

    I’m sure we can make the maps page a little more user-friendly; perhaps it just needs a little additional text.

  4. Ian McBride

    That’s right. All the building names are in the Locations drop down and the divisions (like Admissions) are in the Departments & Offices drop down. So all the information is there, though I can admit that some people might not pick up on it. If you have any text you think could clarify this or a recommendation for how to better organize the menus, I’m more than happy to add that to the interface.

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