Michael Gaigg: Über UI/UX Design

Proposing: Feature Spotlight

Feature Spotlight

Let's say you want to highlight a feature on the map, e.g. a user has searched for a landmark, typically one would place a marker on the map and zoom to that location. The downside is that the user still needs to 'search' for the visual clue (the marker) on the map.

I think the missing link here is to 'black out' the whole map and only highlighting the area surrounding the landmark. This provides a natural focus on the feature and is a really elegant alternative I believe.

Optionally one could use the modal area to add a description or even photos (get creative for yourself). And yes, leave the marker also for browsers that don't support CSS3.

The code is as simple as could be, here is the CSS class called 'spotlight':

    .spotlight {
        display: block;
        position: absolute;
        top: 0px;
        left: 0px;
        width: 100%;
        height: 100%;
	z-index: 100;
        border: 0;
        pointer-events: none;
        /* this is the sweet spot */
        background-image: -webkit-gradient(radial, 50% 50%, 0, 50% 50%, 100, from(rgba(0,0,0,0)), to (rgba(0,0,0,0.8)), color-stop(0.8, rgba(0,0,0,0)));
        background-image: -moz-radial-gradient(50% 50% 45deg,circle closest-side,transparent 0,transparent 100px,rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8) 120px);
    }

And here the HTML defining the spotlight container:

<span id="spot" class="spotlight"></span>

Implementation inspired by CSS3 Spotlight.