Usability – designing for people

The OneOneMap flood data layer I mentioned just a few weeks ago has now been withdrawn, thanks to the Environment Agency.

Incredibly, and at a time when the UK is suffering some of the worst flooding in recent memory, the Environment Agency has seen fit to insist on the removal of OnOneMap’s excellent flood risk layer.

Despite the fact that the data used has been collected at the tax-payers’ expense, its seems the public will be denied easy access to this information in a form which has never been so accessible.

The Environment Agency still makes this information freely available on its own web site, but in a far less accessible form. This does not excuse the fact that they have made an incredibly bad decision, at a time when people need easy access to exactly this kind of information.