The Myriad Uses of ArcGIS StoryMaps

Activism strives to create change in society, whether it be social, political, economic, or environmental. Story Maps provide a way to deliver a message in compelling ways, leverage media and narratives, and often include a call to action. The African Conservation Centre supports the socio-economic development for Maasai women in Kenya.

Especially when you want to use live maps during a briefing or presentation, a story map is a unique and compelling way to make your point without having to switch modes from PowerPoint to a map or app. You can even export your PowerPoint slides and use them in your story map.

Esri's StoryMaps team has largely abandoned PowerPoint in favor of doing presentations in the form of stories and collections.

See  ArcGIS Story Maps presentations instead of PowerPoint  for more details.

Story maps aren't just for organizational use. They're a powerful medium for personal expression. Esri's StoryMaps team member Will Hackney put together an account of a vacation in Mexico as part of a #takemeback collection of travel stories.

Whether it be a guide to historical locations within a city, great restaurants, or parks and preserves, story maps can provide interesting and useful ways to present guides to things of interest. And since story maps are responsive, the same app can be used on a browser or mobile device.

A guided tour of Washington, DC's historic neighborhood of Georgetown combines photos and video clips to provide a vivid sense of place.

The traditional atlas is a collection of maps bound in a book. But a story map atlas rejuvenates the concept by enabling the use of dynamic, rather than static, maps, and providing a framework to enhance the atlas with rich text and interactive media.

Esri's StoryMaps team produced a  narrative ArcGIS StoryMap  on the world's forests; it created this companion atlas to enable easy comparison of maps and provide access to source data.

The  Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency  (MEMA) uses a classic Story Map Series (tabbed layout) to show current weather conditions along with other dynamic data at their Emergency Operations Center (EOC). The photo below shows the MEMA EOC with the story map displayed on the wall monitor at left front, and also on the laptop in the right foreground.

The story map used in the EOC includes live feeds from NOAA and other sources from the  Living Atlas , along with weather feeds and forecasts provided by Accuweather. In this case, the  Story Map Series  is like a binder—it binds together multiple applications into a single app.

Educators are increasingly using story maps for instructional purposes. What's more exciting is that many of them then challenge their students to create their own story maps.

Nathan Fisk, a senior at Silverdale Baptist Academy in Chattanooga, Tennessee, created a sophisticated ArcGIS StoryMap showing how he used drone imagery to create a detailed map of his school's campus.

Introducing your staff, team, or students to customers or the public lets them know who you are, and provides way to showcase the expertise and personality of your company. In this example, a collection features the Environmental Studies majors at Tufts University, each of which is profiled in a brief StoryMap.

With ArcGIS StoryMaps' collection feature, you can aggregate a series of stories and other content onto a single web page. That way, each story can become a "chapter" in a story book. Mission Blue, an ocean conservation nonprofit, created a collection of its "Hope Spots," representing important marine habitats.

Story maps can be easily embedded into your website, adding interesting content and interactivity. Sometimes there’s not much else except for the embedded ArcGIS StoryMap, making it the primary building block of the page. Is it a story map embellished with the addition of a web page, or a web page built using a story map? That’s hard to say, but what’s easy to say is that this is a very interesting and useful technique.

The International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP) uses their standard header plus an embedded classic  Story Map Cascade  to create web pages on their site about their  photographic expeditions around the globe . This page is about an expedition to Palau.

Using Esri's Survey123 app, you can create a custom form inviting people to choose a location, upload a photo, and add a title and description. Then you can embed the form directly into an ArcGIS StoryMap—along with the map or web scene that displays the submissions.

A story map can be used to showcase your business activities, or projects your organization has completed. The town of Yountville, California, uses a classic  Story Map Tour  to highlight their planned, current, and proposed development projects.

Story maps are an ideal medium for instruction. Teachers are using story maps in the classroom; they've also proven useful for instructing GIS users on tools and best practices, and informing mapmakers about cartographic techniques. This story provides step-by-step instructions on how to create an ArcGIS StoryMap.