Smoke Free Cafes Novi Sad: an interactive map of smoke-free venues

Smoke Free Cafes Novi Sad is a city directory of places in Novi Sad where people can spend time without tobacco smoke. The project is built as an interactive map: a user opens the website, sees points on the map, filters them by venue type, and chooses a suitable place.

Open the Smoke Free Cafes Novi Sad project: https://smokefreens.pages.dev/en/

For similar mapping projects, the value is not only in markers on a basemap, but also in the data structure: coordinates, categories, localized labels, and a clear way to keep information updated.

The infrastructure for this kind of map can be fully free: deploy the static website once, and with moderate traffic it can run for years with zero server-side and hosting cost.

Submit brief

Figure 1. Smoke Free Cafes Novi Sad map: users can immediately see how venues are distributed across the city and move to a suitable point.

Technical Outline

• Frontend: static website.
• Map: Leaflet + OpenStreetMap.
• Data: a list of venues with coordinates, categories, and localized labels.
• Localization: RU / RS / EN.
• Feedback: Viber bot for suggestions and updates.
• Publishing: static hosting, without a separate server application.

The static approach fits this project well from a maintenance-cost perspective: the map loads quickly, is easy to host, and does not need a heavy backend while the update volume remains moderate.

Result

• A separate public directory of smoke-free venues in Novi Sad was launched.
• The venue list became an interactive tool with geography and filters, not just a text selection.
• The project got three language versions and became understandable for different city audiences.
• The Viber bot created a channel that helps keep the data up to date.
• The case study became a compact example of a data-first project: data, map, user flow, and feedback are combined into one working product.