Creating Effective Web Maps

An ArcGIS Best Practices Seminar

Copyright 2009 ESRI. All rights reserved.

What makes a good web map?

Relevant and good looking content Simple, Easy to use, Focused user experience Fast

Copyright 2009 ESRI. All rights reserved.

A tornado hits
Disseminating information for better decision making

I dont know if youve followed the news lately, but our city was hit by a F4 tornado. After the storms, we jumped in and started to assist the county in assessment. Thanks to the beauty of Flex and the API for ArcGIS Server, I was able to punch out a robust site for the county in a weekend. (http://www.rutherfordcountytn.gov/tornado2009/) Again, thanks for all the hard work on bringing this great technology to the GIS industry. Keep it up! Chris Prater GISP

Copyright 2009 ESRI. All rights reserved.

Content in your web maps

Put your web hat on

What works on paper may not work on the web What works on your Desktop may not either

Concepts: Base Maps vs Operational Layers Cached vs Dynamic map services

Copyright 2009 ESRI. All rights reserved.

Basemaps
Designed so you can overlay information on top
Beautiful, but not shinny Leave color headroom

Designed for speed

Relatively static info Authored with caching in mind Multi-scale maps

Reusable

Copyright 2009 ESRI. All rights reserved.

Creating base maps

Check list
Are there any already available maps OnLine? (ArcGIS Online) Is there a map template available that I like? (Map Templates) Right tiling scheme? Right format?

Copyright 2009 ESRI. All rights reserved.

Find ready to use maps in ArcGIS Online

Copyright 2009 ESRI. All rights reserved.

http://resources.esri.com (Find Map Templates here)

Copyright 2009 ESRI. All rights reserved.

Resources for building a map cache

Virtual Campus Web training seminar

Implementing and Optimizing ArcGIS Server Map Caches

ArcGIS documentation: Caching Services topic ArcGIS Server blog, map cache tag http://blogs.esri.com/Dev/blogs/arcgisserver/

Copyright 2009 ESRI. All rights reserved.

Operational Layers

Display on top of base map More dynamic information

Potentially dynamic maps, or even graphics

Designed so it shines
You can query it, hover it, filter it

Keep it simple
Cartographically Keep it lean (speed)

About the user experience

simpler web app I would have written a shorter letter, but I didnt have enough time - Mark Twain

Copyright 2009 ESRI. All rights reserved.

Identify your audience

Your average user is not what you dreamed

Copyright 2009 ESRI. All rights reserved.

Tips

It is not about programming, its about design The workflow drives the design The user drives the workflow
As much as programmers hate it As much as designers hate it

Learn from others Design is iterative

Copyright 2009 ESRI. All rights reserved.

ArcGIS Web Mapping APIs

SDKs for building web map applications Which one is right for me?
ArcGIS API for JavaScript ArcGIS API for Flex ArcGIS API for Silverlight

Copyright 2009 ESRI. All rights reserved.

Fast

My mechanic told me, I couldnt repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder. - Steven Wright

Database

Map

Web Services

Network

Application Logic

User

You cant fix everything in the application

Copyright 2009 ESRI. All rights reserved.

Copyright 2009 ESRI. All rights reserved.

Thank you for joining us

Now go get started!

Copyright 2009 ESRI. All rights reserved.