As one of the largest collections of spatial data in the world, the Living Atlas website by Esri houses a tremendous amount of content. Over the past few years, Esri has increased their focus on incorporating maps for data-driven policy. But with over 7,000 datasets on the site, their policy map content was getting lost in the shuffle. When Esri came to Blue Raster, they wanted to broaden the reach of their policy content through a focused website.
User Research
Esri tasked our design team to ensure the new website within the Living Atlas helped users break through these questions:
- “If our state or community makes a policy change, where are the areas we would make the change first?”
2. “We want to use maps and analysis to inform our decisions, but where do we start?”
3. “Is there information about the community already? What webmaps, applications, and story maps already exist?
User Experience
Our team reviewed more than 200 policy maps within the Living Atlas to inform the website’s layout and user interface. After defining the hierarchy and topics of interest, we designed a workflow that tapped into existing Esri code logic to use `category` tags to bucket the maps. This enabled rapid development, where the project went from design to deployment within two weeks. The end result was a site that allows users to explore maps on topics like “Social Equity and Health,” and then save and share their map collection with peers. For example, check out this collection of policy maps for Baltimore, Maryland.
Connecting users to resources explaining how to get started with using maps for policy making was also important. We worked with Esri to identify the types of resources that would maximize a user’s experience. The result was a sub-page on the site containing in-depth trainings, actionable tips, and inspiring stories to equip users to tackle today’s community challenges.
Explore this free, Policy Mapping resource today!
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- Esri
- ArcGIS Online