Handle maps with invalid points more gracefully

DilwoarH commented 2 months ago

What

Maps displaying undesirably when invalid points / no points.

Background

When a map has invalid points / spatial data, it does not render these points - the behaviour that we observe is that the map is display but at the centre of the world (in the middle of the ocean).

Potential solutions

Center map to the UK by default (example: https://codepen.io/DilwoarH/pen/bGPmwym)
Don't display the map if there are no valid points
Display an error message when we do not receive correct data from the request API
Validate data points / spatial data using Zod or similar object schema checkers to ensure it's correct

Steps to reproduce the issue

Go to https://check.planning.data.gov.uk/ and click on start
Select Tree preservation order dataset
Select URL
Use https://www.ashford.gov.uk/media/uuqnswra/tpo_spatial_22_07_24.csv
View map below table

Acceptance criteria

[ ] Map shows UK by default
[ ] Display error message if data is invalid
[ ] Validate data points

Tasks

[ ] PM to decide what is the desired behaviour
[ ] Dev to implement changes
[ ] Test new behaviour with users (optional)

Supporting artefacts

Video of debugging issue on Tree dataset

Impact

How many people are affected (04/11/2024)

Difficult to gage

What part of the process is it impacting

Check your data

Is it preventing people from completing an action or a minor annoyance

Big impact as users may perceive no points on the map as issues with their data
LPAs have raised this as an issue via Jira

alextea commented 2 months ago

A future enhancement would be to centre on the LPA's boundary once the check service is integrated into the dashboard flow

CharliePatterson commented 2 months ago

Thanks @DilwoarH 🙌 this needs some design/UX thinking on the best approach for how this fails gracefully.

My two cents would be to hide the map and show an error message to explain what's going on, so that it reduces confusion.

digital-land / submit