December 19 Log

Author

Charlie

Published

December 19, 2025

December 19 Update

I have moved from entering data and styling a map in ArcGIS to building an ArcGIS storymap. StoryMaps is an ArcGIS app, much like Experience Builder, which Tessa demoed for us earlier in the semester. As a tool for telling visual stories with geographic data, StoryMaps has some immediate benefits and drawbacks.

Benefits of ArcGIS StoryMaps

  1. Syncs with feature layers. I had already created a feature layer for my webmap, which contains all of my data. This means that if I need to update my data, I can simply update the feature layer, and both my webmap and storymap will sync the changes.
  2. Multiple options for storytelling. StoryMaps lets you choose between guided tours, explorer tours, and categorized tours. These are different ways to lead viewers through the map. Explorer tours and categorized tours both let the user move freely from feature to feature, whereas guided tours lead them through the map step-by-step. Because I want to tell a story that has a beginning (where my icons were painted) and an end (where the icons are now), I decided to build a guided tour.

Drawbacks of ArcGIS StoryMaps

  1. Lack of flexibility in design. Ideally, I would design something between a guided tour and a categorized tour, since my data does fit into categories: starting sites, intermediate sites, and final sites. There are multipe “intermediate” and “final” sites, so a strictly linear narrative doesn’t fully make sense. StoryMaps also has little flexibility when it comes to the setup of the webpage. It seems that I can’t change font styles or change cholor scheme beyond certain pre-set themes.
  2. Content must be present in feature layers. This means that if I want to, for example, include an extended description of a site and its history, I have to add it to the spreadsheet that contains my feature layer data. This is not particularly problematic, just mildly annoying, especially since I anticipate this project incorporating a fair amount of text (about a paragraph for each site).

Next steps

Now that I have more familiarity with StoryMaps and its limitations, I plan to go back to the drawing board and do some extended wireframing. The story I want to tell is very much possible in StoryMaps, but I will have to think more deeply and plan more carefully in order to accomplish it. I think that the upcoming session on visual storytelling will also be very useful at this stage.