So, You Want a Map?

Think about ages; technical prowess and tolerance; will it be used by the public, internal, stakeholders, all of the above; language barriers; accessibility issues (visual deficiencies, vision impairment, etc.).

What do you hope the audience takes away?

Neighborhood, city, county, Census tract, state, country, world, etc.

Are there features you want to show or highlight? A story you want to tell?

For instance text callouts, sidebars, etc. Do you have copy written? Do you need assistance writing or editing copy?

Start and end dates and internal milestones.

Do you have a ceiling?

Put together a list of maps or apps that you like and would want to draw inspiration from.

This would be media like still photography, quotes, illustrations, etc.

This would contain palette, typography, icons and logos.

For instance, political boundaries, roads, hydrology, tax districts, political districts, city boundaries, etc.

These might be organization documents, mission statement and values, tabular data, reports, documents, graphs and charts, etc.

Think GIS data, kmzs, shapefiles, geodatabases, aerial imagery, elevation data etc. No data is fine! A lot of GIS data is publicly available and free to use, and much spatial data can be created and/or digitized from other sources.

Do you have a translator that can assist with bilingual translations? Or do you need to include a professional translator in the bid?

Digital only? Print? Folded map? Brochure?

Letter, poster, tiny, unusual…

If the map will be bound, what type of binding?

Printing, framing, mounting, folding, shipping, etc.

Desktop, tablet, mobile device, or both?

Some organizations require the content to be for use within their internal organization only, such as stakeholders, field technicians, and GIS managers.

5 minutes? 30? Do you expect people to “bite off chunks” a little at a time, and come back to finish?

There should be a definitive and explicit Call to Action, both literally as a button (people like clicking buttons!), but also echoed throughout the piece. We don't want to doom and gloom people but we do want to press upon them the importance of the issue and show what's at stake, but offer them a light too.

For instance, finding the user's location, exporting a PDF of the map area, measuring distance, popups with information, show images or other media, a "guided tour" of key locations, provide directions, find zoning info, view graphs or charts, user-submitted reports for on-the-ground conditions, 3D views, etc.

This would be media like still photography and video, audio, interviews, quotes, illustrations, animations, etc.

Will you be incorporating text from an existing source? Do you need assistance writing or editing copy?

Not necessary, but if I will be working with someone on your team to embed the app on your website, this is good info to have.

Do you want me to be involved on a long term basis?

What organization will host the app? Esri has a non-profit program with deeply discounted rate for the ArcGIS platform.