As far as the proportion thing, it’d help if you were clearer on what was actually being asked of you. If things on a map aren’t proportional to their sizes in real life the map is just a bunch of useless symbols of varying sizes. If you are talking about proportion to the user than it more goes with what I said up above.

Anyway, I hoped that helped somewhat. Good luck!

For example, on most united states maps, alaska is scaled WAY down, so many people think that it’s about half the size of texas. In reality, if laid on top of the continental us, it would stretch from the atlantic to the pacific.