For this week’s lab assignment, I chose five of my favorite location on campus and collected relevant information such as its coordinates and how often I visit each building a week on this spreadsheet.
I uploaded the spreadsheet to ArcGIS and chose Light Gray as the basemap. For the symbology aspect of this project, I decided to add diamond shapes. Their size was determined by the frequency of visits in a week, with larger sizes signifying more visits. This relationship is clearly presented by the legend in the map. I chose the color purple because it isn’t part of the color scheme used by the basemap, and diamonds because I thought it stood out a little more than circles. One issue I found is that because three of my buildings are all next to each other, it can be difficult to identify each element in the cluster.
The map can be accessed here.
Overall I enjoyed this process and found it to be relatively straightforward, although there was a learning curve with navigating the website. I think that there is a lot of potential for web mapping for DH work in general as it relates geographical maps to historical spaces and lived human experiences. I think that ArcGIS online platform is a great place for people to start experimenting with this kind of work as researchers can create maps and their own applications and easily share it with other researchers through this platform.
Hi Maina! I like how you used size to note the frequency of visits; it shows a very clear pattern within your map. The purple definitely stands out against the gray, so good work on that as well. And I definitely agree: digital mapping opens up so many possibilities for DH projects, especially the interactive kind! They allow people to learn about maps and incorporate data into them rather than simply look at them. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for ArcGIS and other digital mapping programs!