Legends in Story Maps; story maps with legends. Hmmm...this can be a puzzle.
There are a few ways to annotate your map in a way that help to balance A) the transfer of glorious map information into your readers' brains, with B) the fact that you are telling them a story.
Here are three techniques to consider for your richly appointed storytelling...
While a Cascade story map doesn't yet support the direct inclusion of dynamic legends for your web maps (the other templates do), often stories are better without the typical legend a static map might have. We'll walk through how these three techniques can be used to annotate a complex map for your readers, without lobbing a decoder ring at them.
Conveniently, we can use the recent hamster zombie outbreak as our example.
Check out this kitchen sink of a map. It explains everything...
There's a lot going on here. If we were to toss this map into the story with a great big legend, we would expect the readers to have to stop in their tracks and take efforts to de-code all of the layers, and their symbols and colors, on their own (assuming they were so inclined), relying on leaky short-term memory and a not-so-hot cognitive ability to accurately differentiate colors, as their eyes dart between the map and the symbol key. But this isn't a map delivery device, it's a story!
A legend is just a stand-in for an author who can't be there. The beauty of a story map is that you are there, via your narrative, and you get to unfold your maps personally...
The Great Hamster Zombie Outbreak of 2016 taught us many things.
Chief among them, was how to unfold a complex map within a story narrative.
These are the ten infamous outbreak locations. Because they are the only thing added to the outbreak map in this view, they don't need a key.
A mention of them is key enough.
The hamster hordes, trudging along determinedly, as zombies do, reached these areas in the first week.
By encoding the map layer's color directly into the text (available by selecting text, and choosing the color palette tool from the menu), we add meaning without an abstraction drawing attention away from the narrative.
There is also a sense of drama when related map layers are revealed progressively...
...not that two weeks of zombie progression needs any more drama.
Anyway, after one, two, even three weeks of a zombie outbreak, things can feel grim.
Undead hamsters from various outbreak locations are even starting pile up on each other in the middle.
But we can feel pretty good about the state of epidemiological cartography.
If we're feeling ambitious, instead of relying on only text color, a snapshot portion of the map can be a fine legend-like element, too.
And inset snapshots like this can also be used to describe the phenomenon in more detail. For instance, the proclivity of zombified hamsters to travel along roads, and be no respecters of state borders. Not to mention an apparent extreme aversion to Ontario (a lovely province).
If your Immersive section has a lot of views (the section you just scrolled through had six views), it's a good idea to pop up for air, to reestablish the topic of your narrative and avoid fatiguing your readers. Ever notice how indoor sitcoms always show a wide outside view between scenes? Same reason! It's called an "establishing shot."
So while we were feeling understandably grim about the seemingly inevitable collapse of civilization, there is good news to communicate...
What self-respecting zombie containment organization wouldn't be prepared for an outbreak like this?
These glowing white dots show the embedded locations of elite members of regional zombie containment teams.
Sometimes a description of a handful of different map symbols, within the context of narration, is plenty good enough for readers to track with the growing content of a map.
Within hours of the first reports of an outbreak, Wave 1 Containment Teams were activated and converged at the outbreak sites.
Wave 2 Containment Teams descended shortly thereafter, to provide logistical support, hot cocoa, and camaraderie.
Lastly, Wave 3 deployed to buttress the thinning ranks of Waves 2 and 1.
Ultimately, the zombie outbreak was fully suppressed thanks to spatially aware containment teams, and the progressive presentation of meaningful, bite-sized nuggets of map information, revealed and annotated within a narrative. I fear that if information-dense maps with long legends were used, the response would have been too slow and less motivating. And who knows what sort of zombie hamster-riddled world we would be living in now.
So have fun breaking out your map content into slices of meaning! Also, this non-legend approach can be used for other story map apps, like Map Journal -not just Cascade. If you are telling a story, and the best stories have maps, don't let a legend steal all the fun.
Here's a re-cap of the three methods used to key a map within a narrative context:
Cheers, John
P.S. Want to learn more about the post-apocalyptic rebuilding effort? You might also learn about including media into Cascade stories.
This Story Map was created using Cascade.
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