Building web maps is an endeavour in the visual arts combined with the science of data. Insight gathered by layering geographic data then visualizing it is powerful. Ensuring that these works of art and mountains of data are engaging to the target audience and that they perform well when they are needed most is vital, I am sure you agree. When you don’t have analytics how can we do this? You can guess, you can assume, and you can hope no one asks.

When a customer, citizen, or employee loads the map you worked so hard to produce we want to know the journey of their experience. Is the map compelling and engaging? Do they interact with the map? Do they acquire the information they need quickly? Perhaps they investigate the map deeply with many interactions and find what they are looking for , or perhaps they don’t find it at all. Moreover, if we make changes to the map to improve it, would these changes affect the user experience and the effectiveness of the information the map is meant to provide. Without analytics all you can do is guess, you can assume, you can hope your manager or client doesn’t ask.

Maps span regions small and large geographically, which parts of this area are important to the user of the map? Which layers of data are important to the target audience? Which information loads quickly on their phone, tablet or desktop? At this stage, we are getting good at this. We can make an educated guess, we can have our colleagues load the map on different devices, we can assume if no one calls in to complain about the map that it works.

Let Maptiks help you avoid guesswork with analytics and Metrics, and start building better maps.