Week 9 Blog – ArcGIS StoryMaps Tutorial

What is StoryMaps?

StoryMaps is a tool that can be used as an extention to ArcGIS that creates a project to display data in many formats through interactive models. I personally discovered this tool through my group’s final project, but have found many uses beyond what I originally thought. This tool is specifically useful in the Digital Arts & Humanities because it formats data in a digestable and interactive way, allowing the creator to easily speak through the data to talk to the audience and portray meaning. The formatting of information provides a mix of media and text that can be manipulated by the user based on their needs. This is very helpful when attempting to share humanistic data through maps, as the data can be paired with information that gives it a nuanced context.

How do I use it?

To first get to StoryMaps you can go to the top of your ArcGIS profile and click the 9 dots to open up your options. Scroll down to find ‘StoryMaps’ to navigate to the tool.

Once you are in the tool, you can create a story by clicking ‘create story’. You will be prompted to create a project from scratch or using a quick start, and while any will work, we will click ‘start from scratch’.

From here, you will be given a default blank project. Scroll down and click the green plus to add media. There are many options to chose from at this stage like creating a sidecar, timeline, chart, etc, so I encourage you to play around with all the options. However, we will click the bottommost option ‘map tour’.

To import data from an already existing ArcGIS layer, chose ‘Start with a feature service’ when prompted, yet note that you could also create your map from scratch in the tool itself.

From here you will be shown all of the layers you have in ArcGIS and you can chose which you would like to work with. Once you have chosen, your media will be imported into your project and you will be shown the default guided tour. There are multiple customization options you can chose at this point. For example, you can click ‘Edit data source’ to adapt what your map is showing.

Make sure to decide what column of your imported data you want to display as each point’s title and description, as well as what media you want shown with the images

Once your data is organized how you would like, there are many templates that you can chose to present your map. To chose one, go to the ‘Layout’ option at the bottom of the screen. You will be prompted with 5 different layouts that will display your data in different ways depending on what you want the user to focus on. For example, you can chose ‘Media Focused’ if you want the media to be the most prominent part of your project. The formats are also organized as ‘Guided’ and ‘Explorer’ which allows you to determine which is more suitable for what you want to do.

There are many other ways that you can use StoryMaps to present your data in a specific format, with many of its features being an extension of ArcGIS so there is not much disconnect between the services. I highly recommend you explore the interface and see what you can do with your own data!

Other Resources:

Tutorial directly from the ArcGIS website