Referendum/ballot measure maps should take into account colour blindness and use a colours such as
these
Avoid using headings (as on
this map) – maps will always appear in a context where the heading is unnecessary (e.g. in an infobox with a caption) and will be used on different language wikis (so it is unhelpful to limit the map to a single language). They also often don't match article titles, which makes it slightly incongruent.
Avoid using include graphs, bar charts etc – maps are not supposed to be standalone explanations of an election result, as they will only be used in locations where those details are immediately adjacent (e.g. in infoboxes or next to results tables). Having these added to the image results in the map itself being shrunk to accommodate the additional details. In many cases the maps are shown at a size where these details are too small to read.
Avoid using legends – similar to graphs and bar charts, these take up space and result in the map having to be shrunk, and in many cases a legend is unnecessary as party colours will be shown in the same infobox. Legends are also issues for maps being used on different language wikis as parties may have different names in different languages. Instead, legends can be added using the caption function as in the infobox of
this article, which avoids compressing the map and allows the appropriate language to be used. These legends can be created on the commons description and copied across.
Avoid listing data such as turnout; different languages use different number formatting and the decimal places used may not be consistent with the infobox the map is used in (for example
this map has the turnout as 78,7% (the Dutch number format).
Vote share shading should not be so absolute as to make the highest vote share all appear so dark as to be undifferentiable (for example, it is hard to tell which party won the southernmost constituency in
this map).
Maps should not include territory claimed by a country, but in which no voting takes place (for example Guatemalan maps should not include Belize; Venezuelan maps should not include Guayana Esequiba; Argentine maps should not include the Falkland Islands). Territory claimed by a country though not internationally recognised, but in which voting does take place, should be differentiated in the map.
If a series of election articles has a consistent map format, new maps should follow the same format unless the map creator is willing to create maps in the new format to replace all the maps with the previous format. This will ensure consistency of presentation across articles.