Towards Cartographic Standards for Web-Based Flood Hazard MapsICON Engineering, Inc. & University of Colorado, Boulder

Who We Are

Eben Dennis

ICON Engineering, GIS Coordinator

Civil Engineering firm

FEMA Mapping Partner

Primarily Public Sector projects (UDFCD, Boulder, Denver, Greeley, Ft Collins)

Certified Floodplain Managers

UC Denver Geography Program Graduate

GIS

Cartography

Hazards and Risk

Robert Soden

University of Colorado, Boulder, PhD Student

Co-Risk Labs, Principal

California-based research and design company

Previous Background

World Bank Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery

Development Seed

World Resources Institute

Why Are We Doing This?Web-based flood maps and web-based maps in general are mostly garbage.

The tendency to create a GIS in the browser is a massive pitfall for both the public and experts attempting to utilize these applications.

Web-based mapping is still a relatively new field, and cartographic/design standards are not widespread if they exist at all.

These applications have clear potential, but the design standards still need to be developed to provide best practices for effective communication and end-user suitability.

User Centered DesignSpecify the context of use: Identify the people who will use the product, what they will use it for, and under what conditions they will use it.

Specify requirements: Identify any business requirements or user goals that must be met for the product to be successful.

Create design solutions: This part of the process may be done in stages, building from a rough concept to a complete design.

Evaluate designs: Evaluation - ideally through usability testing with actual users - is as integral as quality testing is to good software development.

From usability.gov

Why Web-Based Flood Hazard Maps?

The ability to distribute and communicate flood maps in an effective and wide-reaching manner enables its use in all phases of the risk cycle, from planning and mitigation to response and recovery.

The barrier to access for both developers and end-users is becoming lower and lower with each new iteration of web-mapping products.

Previous Research - Public Facing

Typical Problems:

“Map portals over-focus on the the map, under-focus on text-based search and discovery”

Providing multiple data layers in a web-map application decreases usability for most of the audience

Solutions:

Treat your data more like a search engine, include auto-complete, make it obvious.

Focused, single-topic applications; accomodate the small number of power users by making data available for download; provide custom basemaps with some data already built in.

Previous Research - Public Facing

Timoney’s Four Requirements of a Web Application:

FAST, INTUITIVE, INFORMATIVE, FASTMany tools included in out-of-the-box web applications look and act like a desktop GIS, which is great if you’re a trained GIS user, not so much for the other 98% of your audience.

If you want a layer to contain information on a click, why would you make a user click on an ‘Info’ button first?

Previous ResearchRoth & Cartographic Interaction

“How maps are manipulated by the map user”

Contrasts with the classic Communication Model

Map & user influence each other

Speed of application can affect productivity and focus

Interviews

Conducted interviews with floodplain engineers, clients, and end users to help determine the utility of the applications.

Two audiences were identified:

Public - typical homeowner, wants to know if they are in the floodplain

Expert - engineers and clients utilizing maps as a data immersion tool

Decisions made with this application will potentially affect the public user

Methodology

Competitor Analysis

Analyzed 25 different flood mapping sites

Nearly all government owned/operated

What interaction operations are supported?

How is flood risk represented?

Clear Statement of Purpose

Clear Branding/Ownership

Disclaimers

Address Lookup

Dictionary/Links to Further Info

Guidance for Property in the Floodplain

Base Map Options

Flood Overlay Options

Technology Used

Competitor Analysis

Almost everyone using ESRI stacks

Good news is that most sites had address lookups

Bad news is that almost none of the sites tell you what to do if, in fact, your home is in the floodplain.

Who do I actually talk to about buying it? What if my house is elevated? What the heck is an elevation certificate? These are all important pieces of information that users want to know in this context.

Competitor Analysis

Competitor AnalysisGIS on the internet

Too many buttons that have no intuitive meaning to non-GIS users

No clear purpose

Slow load times, near impossible to keep user interest

Competitor AnalysisSingle purpose application

Limited interactions

Plenty of opportunity for self-directed learning by users

Not too text heavy, but does a good job of providing links to users who are interested in learning more

Walkthrough

Created web-map application for a public audience

Single purpose of the application is to identify flood hazards in Boulder, CO

Built on Mapbox GL and Turf.js (fast!)

Consists of search bar, map panel, info panel, small legend

Limited interactions

Statement of purpose is given up front in the info panel

Flood information is provided for users in and out of the floodplain

Additional flooding information is provided in a custom basemap

Had public users think aloud while they used the application

Walkthrough

Walkthrough - Findings

People used the search bar, overwhelmingly - though some were confused by autocomplete.

Almost as overwhelmingly, they don’t read text

Simple, actionable instructions - what is the key information the public needs at each stage of the project?

Walkthrough - Findings

The NFIP 100-year floodplain presents a limited portrayals of flood hazard. People were genuinely surprised when they realized that areas outside the floodplain were affected by the 2013 Colorado floods.

In making these sites simple to use, we need to be careful to not convey simplistic understanding of science - when we added the 2013 flood footprint and it created just enough dissonance for people to get engaged and start asking interesting questions

Survey

For the expert audience, we utilized two existing applications built by ICON Engineering.

All of the questions on the survey were open-ended, with the exception of difficulty ratings, in order to better simulate a real-world decision making process.

The audience is wholly comprised of CASFM YMG members, so the expectation is they will be comfortable with web-map applications and have the ability to accurately answer technical questions.

Survey Application 1

Survey -Application 1Too many clickable elements

Alternatives aren’t easily distinguished

Flow direction arrows extremely useful

Speed, clickable information, layer toggles? All good things.

Missing statement of purpose, lacking instructions, more description needed for layers

Survey Application 2

Survey -Application 2Transparency on transparency isn’t the most effective

Layer switching not as intuitive as toggles/checkboxes

Speed? Still a good thing.

Needs a better description of what each layer represents

When multiple elements are clickable, more clarity for what layer fired the popup

Next Steps

Next Steps

Better in-page analyticsClick tracking

Time spent on page

More data!

Gather more user feedback on the two expert systems

Iterate!

Finalize and write up resultsPublish!

Questions?Slides available at ebendennis.github.io/notes