<p>
The need for a loading message raises another issue.
The map data returned is
quite large, and so this application is not well suited for
dial-up connections.
In fact, the data returned is fairly large even for a
broadband connection in
the case where the PUMA analysis areas are chosen. It
took at least a minute to
begin to display the map over a T1 connection. The
bandwidth requirements should
be included with the other requirements (browser and
plug-in). Another way to
attack the issue would be to have strong guidelines for
the geographic data that
is loaded by the administrator. For example, the PUMA
administrative shapes
probably have far more vertices than are really
necessary for a map of this
scale, and the data should be generalized before
loading. Also, although this
doesn?t reflect on the program itself, it appears that the
geographic data for
CA is not projected. It would look a little less distorted if
it were projected
to California State Plane coordinates, or to UTM
coordinates.<br>
</p>
