Text-Based Instant App Templates: Nearby and Zone Lookup
141
0
3 weeks ago
by
This year (2025) I attended the Esri User Conference and my main mission was to inquire with all the product teams about their accessibility roadmaps. The Instant Apps team pointed out a couple of templates that allow you to hide the map and essentially have a text-only application, run by a map in the background.
Hiding the map removes a major accessibility visual barrier and can make your content potentially more screen-reader compatible.
Instant App Templates with the ability to hide the map:
- "Nearby" allows the users to see what features are near their location or a certain address.
"Zone Lookup" allows the users to look up if their location or an address is within a polygon.
Tips for using these templates as a text-only application:
- Turn off Express Mode. This will allow you to see all settings.
- Configure the map pop-up. The information returned to the user is what is contained in the pop-up. If you are intending to use this as a screen reader-friendly application, make sure the pop-up is configured to contain only text that is understandable to the end-user.
- Use dynamic text to populate plain language sentences that give the user the intended information of the application.
- If you include charts or images, include alt-text in the HTML settings.
- If your pop-up is text-heavy, use nested heading levels to break up the content.
- Hide Map in the settings
- In the "Nearby" template this setting is found in Nearby > Search Method > Hide Map
- In the "Zone Lookup" template, this setting is found in Theme & Layout > Layout > Hide Map
- In the "Nearby" template, you must "Search by Radius"
- Find this setting in Nearby > Search Method > Search Method > Search Radius
