Left-align categorical map legends

[sophiamersmann]

Motivation

When a map has many categories, then centre-aligned legends are difficult to read. This is especially true for mobile chart exports.

Example: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/forms-of-homelessness-included-in-available-statistics

Before	After

See more examples: https://github.com/owid/owid-grapher-svgs/commit/93e1b3cbb765516dbb53ccb259a67fe68ccb4a9a

Pro/contra

• Charts legends on top of the chart are left-aligned as well
• Numerical map legends would still be centre-aligned
• Numerical+categorical map legends would also still be centre-aligned
• Left-aligning single-line map legends look off since the map is centre-aligned

Slack

Slack: https://owid.slack.com/archives/C04VBQ00HQR/p1726656315000319

Marwa's notes: Thanks for bringing this up Charlie! Here are my thoughts:

• I think the best solution would be, like you said, to left-align the legend when it’s on multiple lines and to keep it centered when it’s just on one line. I don’t really see an issue with consistency there tbh… As long as we have a clear rule and aren’t aligning the legend haphazardly
• Having said that, if we could only opt for one alignment I would chose to left-align. I see what you mean by it looking funky and I think that if it were placed below the subtitle, then it would be less of an issue (but I think that’s a bigger change that we may not want to commit to right now, just food for thought)
• Another idea could also be to just left align the legend on mobile and keep it centered on desktop

We agreed to try left-align multi-line legends only first