ezwelty
commented
2 days ago @wbazant Interesting observation. My first instinct was to mimic the mobile app, which includes the beginning of the location description, with an ellipsis (...) if it doesn't fit on one line. Which could be a nice addition. But this doesn't really help in this case where the location types and descriptions are all the same.
If we were to mimic the mobile app's behavior of a small discrete '+' in the center of the map, then their would always be a reference for distance and cardinal direction. 🤷🏼♂️ Whatever the reference, it should probably be the same as the distance, which currently is always the current map center, regardless of place search or geolocation.
When testing #525 in Boulder, CO (lots of similar types because it's a map import), the user was confused about the "repeated" locations in the list. One idea we had on the spot was to indicate direction as well as distance - e.g. ✵ 50 meters northwest - which we would internationalize, see #531.
On more reflection, since we have access to all the location data, we could also show something else with secondary text, like an address, or only show the directions when there's an obvious center to give these locations from: only when there's a searched place or when geolocation is on.