topic How to make a user-friendly interactive map? in Mapping Questions

How to make a user-friendly interactive map?

GiovaniBottesini — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 11:10:28 GMT

Hi everyone.
I'm not a GIS advanced user, so I'm not sure if that is even possible, but let's give it a try:

I'm working on a project to build a user-friendly interface in which the user would click on a road and the map would automatically display some tables or charts summarizing some information.

For example, a Roads layer would be connected to an excel spreadsheet. The user would input information about land use in the spreadsheet, who would calculate the number of lanes needed for the road and automatically display on the map.

Ideally, it would look something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaUeXwbIlNY

I would appreciate any comments.

Thanks!

Re: How to make a user-friendly interactive map?

MattSayler — Wed, 09 Oct 2013 21:41:17 GMT

Looking to do this on a web or a desktop app?

Web could be done a number of ways, and without knowing more, is the direction I'd lean.

Desktop would probably require some customization (i.e. C#/VB .NET) to get to something truely simple and user-friendly.

Re: How to make a user-friendly interactive map?

GiovaniBottesini — Wed, 09 Oct 2013 23:27:49 GMT

Hi there.

It would be desktop based.
I believe it would be something similar to this, right?
http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/4478-Dynamic-link-between-Excel-spreadsheet-and-attribute-table

Re: How to make a user-friendly interactive map?

MattSayler — Fri, 11 Oct 2013 20:47:46 GMT

Well, that's an example of some custom code. To go the full user-friendly, desktop application route, you may need a developer. If you don't have any on staff, you might want to set up a consultation. Figure out your stakeholders (user groups) and their requirements, then talk to Esri or a third party consulting group that has gis developers. They should be able to give you an idea how much can be done with existing out of the box tools, how much will require customization, and just an overall level of effort.

You might also want to look at some existing viewer programs and see if there is something already put together that fits your needs or at least comes close.

Re: How to make a user-friendly interactive map?

MattSayler — Fri, 11 Oct 2013 20:55:54 GMT

Without know more about your requirements, you might be able to do a sort of hybrid web/desktop approach by making a custom html popup:
http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#/Setting_HTML_pop_up_properties_for_feature_layers/00s50000002r000000/

People would still be using the full ArcMap application, so I'm not sure how well that fits your 'user-friendly' criteria. If that tool is available in ArcReader, that would provide a simpler environment.