Meaningful map legends

[grumbledook]

It's nice to have different ways to represent a track on the map. However heart rate, power or temperature maps don't tell much if one cannot guess the values from the colors. So please add numbers to the color gradients shown. For temperature, one should use a fixed scale anyhow. And for heart rate and power maps, the colors could reflect the zones defined by the user.

[Maybenaught]

I'm curious how you're using the maps or what additional info you're looking for that isn't in the other graphs too. I would have guessed the colors were either standardized globally or specific to the user's single activity stats. For example, I run with an elevation gain of 600ft, I start at 400ft and climb to 1000ft. Either 0ft of elevation is blue (for example) for all users or blue is the lowest elevation color per activity. I always assumed that on most maps it was by specific user and my activity stats were the "legend" for the map. So blue is blue for everyone at the lowest elevation regardless of what it is. And my red on heart rate isn't necessarily going to be red for you based on fitness. A global standardization for certain legends would be difficult because there would be so many different colors. It's fun to see it on the map but if you really want the details you'd want to reference your graphs of information. I guess, if the colors are global it would be nice to have the legend but if it's per user, your graphs of data are a sort of legend for the maps. At least that's how I've used it.

[grumbledook]

The scale of the color gradient is inly based on the lowest and highest values of the respective data per activity. E.g., if your lowest HR was 140 and your highest 160 you would get the same colors as if it was 90 and 180. So the coloring may give a wrong impression about your effort unless you add the respective lowest and highest value (i.e. numbers) to the legend. But it would be even better if (in addition) the coloring would be based on user-defined HR and power zones. Of course, two color gradients won't do the trick here.

[zecanard]

I actually had this problem with Dirt/Surface Type. Dotted and solid were obvious enough, but I couldn’t understand what the hollow line meant, especially since my route would randomly change to hollow while running on sidewalks. The Support page (linked to when clicking the ⓘ) doesn’t provide any clarification either.

It wasn’t until I saw this article by @Mason that I finally learned what the hollow line meant.

We really need better legends/explanations for these.