Tips and Tricks for Creating Story Maps Leslie Zolman

storyboard What story do you want to tell? Purpose & goal of story audience

simplify How can you make it clear and simple? Only include details to support the narrative

elements What elements are needed to tell the story? Data Video Photos Audio Links GIS – not always the focus

Story map format Pick a format that will tell your story best Maybe you want to embed a second or third story map in your story map Hard to change formats later

iterative Review your storyboard keeping in mind your story map format and map elements you acquired

Plan ahead for pop-ups Refine names, data, links and field aliases before publishing to ago

Use one web map Try to put everything you need into one web better response time for user since only one map has to load

Use one web map Turn on and off layers as needed in the story map Zoom to different areas of interest It will look and feel like multiple maps

Add apps to the story map Match colors Avoid titles Use stripped down apps Provide directions on how to use apps

Pop-Ups Don’t use default pop-up table Use paragraph formatting Customize with html Make pop-ups Informative but brief

Plan ahead During storyboarding determine pop-up layout Add photos, links, text and other needed elements into data before publishing to ago!

Don’t forget a custom thumbnail Metadata Share your map

Know when and how updates will affect your story map

Check the status of map content https://storymaps.arc gis.com/en/my- stories/

Check images

Check webpages

Thank you