Are you a fan of maps? Then avoid surfing over to HammondMap.com so you don’t have to see what you’re missing.

HammondMap is the marketing website for the Hammond World Atlas Corporation. That company is a division of the Langenscheidt Publishing Group. Hammond World Atlas Corporation makes some great product, but they don’t know how to sell it on their website. And that’s a shame.

It would have been easy for HammondMap web designers to create an atlas-based theme for this website. It would have been a simple matter for them, using uncomplicated Java script or regular old HTML, to divide up an image of one of the company atlases and upload it to this site. It would have been practically a non-event to develop a web-based, interactive geography game on the HammondMap website, designed to hook geography students, teachers and site surfers, too.

Any of these elements built into HammondMap would have been a fun, engaging, and creative way to attract and keep surfers on their site. Instead none of these design elements is present at HammondMap.  Their web designers steadfastly avoided any attempt to incorporate their product, or any imagination into the site.

The way the website is designed, the people at HammondMap seem to think that brand awareness is what drives the cartographic consumer. More attention to detail has been paid to the “brands” section of this website than to any of the product pages. And yet, such a premise is patently false. People buy maps for only two reasons. They need a map to navigate to a place, or they need a map to look at a place. People don’t treat maps like they treat greeting cards.  People will flip a greeting card over to “see if it’s a Hallmark.”  No one ever glances at the back of an atlas or a map to make sure “it’s a Hammond”.

Every map store owner knows that the customer wants to be able to see the whole map. That’s why map stores cover every possible surface, conspicuously displaying their wares. HammondMap, by contrast, hides their maps. Out of three dozen maps and map books that we attempted to view, only four offered any views other than the cover. And those that were on display, were out of focus.

The argument could be made that HammondMap.com is simply trying to protect their intellectual property from pirates and plagiarists. Unfortunately, what holds true in reality also holds true in virtual reality. That is if someone really wants to take your stuff, they can. However, adequate defenses against such breaches of copyright can be built into a website using Java script or even Macromedia Flash animation software.

The two easiest places to surf at HammondMap are where one registers for an Educator’s Account, and also the commerce area. That section includes the Shopping Cart and Checkout. Why am I not surprised?

Registering for an Educator’s discount resulted in a return email that included the following statement: ” Some of the most significant changes from our previous site include a streamlined home page with a quicker access to browse categories such as Maps and Atlases and Travel Guides. The display of products within each browse category has been completely revamped, making it easier to find products with fewer mouse clicks. Advanced Search has also been greatly enhanced, with a new capability of searching for keywords in titles only or only by publisher. ISBN numbers can now be searched.”

ISBN numbers are used by the Library of Congress to catalog and track all publications, including maps. Every ISBN number we knew to be associated with a Hammond product that we searched on the HammondMap website produced a “number not found” error message. So much for enhanced capability.

To sum it up, HammondMap is an uninspired, unimaginative website boasting lousy product presentation. Its layout is not user-friendly and discourages lengthy visits. It offers only one language option.

So on the .com Dish! site surfin’ scale, HammondMap rates a 1 out of 5.

If HammondMap could be rated, it would be rated an “E” for everybody, as in everybody should avoid this site. Oh, and don’t look for any solace over at AmericanMap.com either.  Its owned by the same publishing group.  Its design is identical to HammondMap.