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My first thought was: limited scope. There is a limited view of the park, and the sounds replay. This is more of a technological issue. However, I will say that this can easily be enhanced by adding an element of time. Because public spaces like the Buckingham Fountain can be used by a variety of people throughout the day, the types of sounds will change. The noises that are highlighted will changebecause the fountain’s visitors change. I think that people discredit the amount of change even a park bench can go through in one day due to the diversity of its users. The scale could be a little larger in order to place the view in perspective for the viewer. I really only use street view to visualize where I am going, not to explore one space. Street view to me is a tool for the directionaly-impared like myself who need visuals to know where they’re going. To just see a park with a fountain gives me no context about its location in the city, the size of the park or the different features of the park. I essentially am clicking right or left like a guess-and-check game where I’m not sure where I am going or where I am.
When I tried to make sense of how to improve this map-style using the guidelines of Monmonier I was even more confused. Monmonier states that if you are highlighting differences in climate a projection with straight, parallel lines is needed. If however, you are highlighting time of day, straight line meridians are important instead. I think that both a comparative look of the space during different seasons and different times of day would be helpful to a viewer. What is this park like during a summer day? What is like during a fall night? It doesn’t have to be specific like ‘what is this park like during Christmastime’ although, that would be interesting to see as well. This is all to say, how does the cartographer construct these meanings in a digital, interactive, map while still looking on to the principles of Monmonier?
The best part of this sound map is that the visual is enhanced by hearing sounds that an average viewer would here on any given day. It is relatively user-friendly by enabling familiar street-view icons that someone might recognize from Google. Ahhh Google: the all-knowing,all-powerful mapper. It is clear from “Mapping the Empire” that some maps (*cough* Google) have the power to essentially eliminate the thought of human existence wherever they so please, I don’t think the lack of information that I am critical of with Sounds of Street View is born out of the same agenda. I think there is a clear oversight into the amount of fluidity a public space can have at any given moment. When we limit the view to only the sunny daytime in Chicago, where you see and hear, cheerful noises, you leave the rest to the imagination of the viewer. When you have no pictures or streetviews for a township in South Africa with families and human lives you send a message to the reader that the place is desolate and not worth imagining.