http://labs.timesonline.co.uk/blog/2009/03/11/uk-cycling-accidents/

I remember being part of the team that first put census data and maps into the hands of non-specialist users through the then-new technologies of PCs and CD-ROM back in the late 80s with a product we called SuperMap (from Space Time Research).

We couldn’t even dream of this sort of access to data and maps back in those days, although I dare say that the ability to misread and misrepresent the information has remained constant.

I’m not sure the analogy to fonts in the 1980s is applicable to map making. My logic is as follows — fonts (and choosing them) and desktop publishing was something that just about everyone got into because it was essential (e.g., eventually you had to understand how to use Word and later Excel and PowerPoint — part of jobs requirements). I don’t think everyone needs to become a mapmaker (just because smart phones will all have GPSs in them doesn’t mean people are going to make the effort to use the GPS). Its just another thing on the “to do list” for people and for many it will be non-essential. Being able to choose fonts and desktop publish was essential, map making is a non-essential for the foreseeable future (unless one’s income depends on it and hence it is a desired skill to have relative to people who don’t have the skill for people, say, competing for jobs in a job market)!

I don’t see this as a “design for the web” issue. The principles predate and transcend the web, we should be teaching them, and we mostly don’t.

As you note, it’s to be expected but Jakob Nielsen claimed that bad design on the web went on for 10 years. I think we have to be smarter about neo-cartography (if you will) much quicker than that.