Today I was cleaning up some code and making small updates to a website that was not developed by us. The client has recently moved her business location, so I had to go through the website and update addresses. I know, that’s about as fun as watching paint dry, but had I not been changing the driving directions to the new address I would have never come across this gem. At first glance, it looks like a fully functional Map Quest map. One that gives you the ability to drag the map around and zoom in and out. This functionality is so common, we see it on almost everyone’s website these days.
What makes this map different you ask? Well, whomever developed this website either cut corners or was in-over-their-head and had to fake it. This particular map is simply a screenshot of the businesses location made to look like an interactive map. The developer even went as far as to recreate the zoom in and zoom out graphics. But that’s all they are, graphics. If you try clicking on zoom in, you get nothing. Zooming out? Forget about it. It amazes me that the developer actually took the time to make it look like a functional map. Seriously, were they trying to fool the client into thinking they had added an interactive map to the site? We run into this sort of thing all the time and only reinforces the reason to have a company with a solid track record with a team of professionals design your website and other design work.
