Designing Mobile-Optimized Cartograms

<p dir="ltr">This paper presents a mobile-optimized redesign of go-cart.io, an open-source tool for generating contiguous cartograms, addressing gaps in interactive map research on small touchscreens. The authors propose a responsive interface that preserves core interactions—linked brushing, infotips, smooth morphing between cartograms—and add a redesigned area-to-value legend controlled via a ruler with “nice-number” snapping. Standard touch gestures enable panning, isotropic zoom, rotation, and reset, while a new “stretching” interaction supports direction-dependent zoom to make narrow, elongated regions easier to select without losing context; view settings persist across datasets and years. The paper outlines plans for user studies and real-world trials to evaluate usability and promote adoption in practice.