MapBrief™ Blog

How the Public Actually Uses Local Government Web Maps

Metric #1 Single-Topic maps get 3 times the traffic of the traditional Map Portal

Metric #3 Auto-complete drives clean user queries

Metric #6 People Actually Interact with Balloon Content

Metric #7 People Rarely Change Default Map Settings

MapBrief™ Blog

How the Public Actually Uses Local Government Web Maps

In Denver the most common request is for “Washington Park”–a yuppie oasis where I’m forced to ponder the dark recesses of the human heart given the preponderance of couples in matching lycra.
- B. Timoney

What do we want to know?

Are users able to understand the purpose of our web map and use it effectively for that purpose?

Two Methods

Usability Testing

Telemetry (gathering numbers with Google Analytics)

Examples

Seattle Parking Map
http://web6.seattle.gov/sdot/seattleparkingmap/

EPA Clean Watersheds Map
http://geoplatform1.epa.gov/cwns/

Usability Testing
the Seattle Parking Map

Audience is broader public

What we saw

Some users had no idea they could even interact with the map
Some users just didn't understand what they could do...

What we learned

Totally overwhelming (for a public audience)
Needs focus

What we did

Add link to specific places\extents

Parking in Wallingford

http://web6.seattle.gov/sdot/seattleparkingmap/?xmin=1262613.83&ymin=237819.33&xmax=1275913.83&ymax=244619.33&basemap=street

Created 'hoverable' graphics to entice users to zoom in and interact

*that have since been removed…

Usability Testing Summary

This is a luxury...
Would be great if someone could do this for the greater good of web mapping...

The Quick

The Clean Watersheds Needs Survey

Presents the results of a federally mandated survey assessing the needs, in dollars, required to adequately maintain water maintenance facilities to ensure clean water.

These results are then presented in an official Report to Congress.

CWNS Mappr

CWNS Mapper

An interactive web map supplemental to the official Report to Congress.

The Quick Guide

Clean Watersheds Web Map

Google Analytics


(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){
    i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;
    i[r]=i[r]||function(){
        (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();
        a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];
        a.async=1;
        a.src=g;
        m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})
        (window,document,'script',
        '//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');
ga('create', 'I M Ttly Watching U', 'auto');
ga('send', 'pageview');

How

What we want to know can be categorized and hooked up with those Events

Event	Category	Label
Map click (identify)	map-interaction	map-identify
Facility click	map-marker-interaction	facility-popup
Facility detail click	get-details	facility-details
Search btn click	search	search-btn
Layer toggle item click	legend-interaction	layer-toggle
Geoshortcut click	geoshortcut	geoshortcut-link
Entity details click	get-details	entity-details
Facility zoom to click	zoom-to	facility-zoom-to
Entity zoom to click	zoom-to	entity-zoom-to
Basemap topo click	basemap	topo-basemap
Basemap satellite click	basemap	satellite-basemap

to hook into the aerial imagery basemap toggle for example


$("#toggle-aerial-basemap").click(function () {
    // send the aerial basemap toggle event to google analytics
    ga('send', 'event', 'basemap', 'click', 'aerial-basemap');
    cwns.setBasemap("Imagery");
});

What we learned

Google Analytics Dashboard

User Stats

Event Labels

Event Categories

Event Results

map-identify far and away the leader
facility-marker second, but in this app, very similar to identify. Basically this is users looking for details about our Needs data, exactly what we’d hoped.

Event Results

Basemap toggle third
This was a bit of a surprise BUT in hindsight, if you zoom in to a facility you want to see what’s on the ground or specifically where it is.