Web Maps

What in the world do you want...

david puckett / @brightrain

I mean, I got a degree in Sociology, so ...

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 
    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...

Measuring Tool Usage
with EPA Web Map

Intended audience was primarily municipal water system managers BUT would ultimately be public

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.

Event Results

  • Geoshortcuts toward the bottom. These were concessions to the non-contigs so we didn’t anticipate high use, but they needed to be there.

Event Results

  • Biggest surprise was layer toggles

Event Flow

Now if you want to get fancy
User action flow, what sequence of map interactions

What was sad

I forgot to update google analytics after implementing auto-search

What was sad

I forgot to update google analytics after implementing auto-search

What was sad

I forgot to update google analytics after implementing auto-search

BUT...

I do know anecdotally that search is heavily requested and heavily used

and autocomplete is a no brainer

Experimental Control

What we didn’t include (but would have been interesting)

Kitchen Sink App

Select by Triangle

The Kitchen Sink always includes the ability to draw\select an (Imprecise Equilateral) Triangle.

    So what's the ideal

  • Target your audience

  • Search

  • Don't overwhelm *unless they are 'GIS Professionals'

  • Give them what they need, that's it

Resources

- Seattle Parking Map

- CWNS App (with analytics)

- How the Public Actually Uses Local Government Web MapsBrian Timoney

- (Map) Telemetry: The Raw NumbersDave Bouwman

- Google Analytics Event Tracking

- Map AutocompleteDavid Puckett