My first impression of ORBIS was that it was incredibly aesthetically pleasing. The organization of the map, along with the information about each route at the bottom of it, was very pleasing to look at and organized in a way that made it easy to keep track of why each route had certain pros and cons. Navigating the map was easily done, and I found it to be incredibly helpful in gaining an understanding of what travel would have consisted of then.
The creators took seasons, priorities, modes of transportation, and more into account when creating the site, which is a wonderful way of covering all bases and leaving little room for questions or confusion. I was able to look at how seasonal changes or cost would affect travel, and could have clicked around on the map for a while. One could have limited knowledge of ancient Rome and they would still enjoy this site, mainly thanks to the description and detail given to each button. Before clicking anything, I was able to first hover over it and read what it would do, along with what I could expect to learn from it. This helped me keep my bearings and not get ahead of myself when discovering the map.
One change that would have further improved the experience would have been to allow the "About" page to open in a new tab so users could reference it and go back to the map without having to close the "About" page. While I did find this to be a slight issue, it was helped by the tutorial, which led me through what to click and why it might be helpful.
My first impression of ORBIS was that it was incredibly aesthetically pleasing. The organization of the map, along with the information about each route at the bottom of it, was very pleasing to look at and organized in a way that made it easy to keep track of why each route had certain pros and cons. Navigating the map was easily done, and I found it to be incredibly helpful in gaining an understanding of what travel would have consisted of then. The creators took seasons, priorities, modes of transportation, and more into account when creating the site, which is a wonderful way of covering all bases and leaving little room for questions or confusion. I was able to look at how seasonal changes or cost would affect travel, and could have clicked around on the map for a while. One could have limited knowledge of ancient Rome and they would still enjoy this site, mainly thanks to the description and detail given to each button. Before clicking anything, I was able to first hover over it and read what it would do, along with what I could expect to learn from it. This helped me keep my bearings and not get ahead of myself when discovering the map. One change that would have further improved the experience would have been to allow the "About" page to open in a new tab so users could reference it and go back to the map without having to close the "About" page. While I did find this to be a slight issue, it was helped by the tutorial, which led me through what to click and why it might be helpful.