Michael Gaigg: Über UI/UX Design

Esri Redistricting App on Frontpage of ArcNews (Spring 2011)

Posted by Michael Gaigg

Redistricting app featured on ArcNews, Spring 2011

It's always exciting to see your designs come to life but it's even cooler to be featured on the front page of a ArcNews Spring 2011, one of Esri's main publications.

"Esri Redistricting is a Web-based solution for state and local governments, legislators, and advocacy groups to create political and geographic redistricting plans." The app is hosted by Esri and delivered as software-as-a-service through annual subscriptions (30 days free trial available).

Mockups in MS PowerPoint

First of all I want to mention that the project became a success only for the dedicated and hard work of so many talented people, my part was really only the literal drop on a hot stone.

Very early on I had the feeling that this project would benefit from higher graphical fidelity (maps, charts, colors were important) so I decided to use Microsoft PowerPoint to communicate the designs. Using my wireframe stencils to draw the UI elements we iterated through multiple versions and approaches.

Main Lesson: Use slide master layout as background

Mockups in MS PowerPoint

My biggest lesson was the need to create a new layout to the Slide Master which would serve as the background. This layout included the banner (logo, user information), the menu (ribbon) and the map area.

Advantages:

• Changes propagated to all slides (e.g. modify a label)
• Easy manipulation of elements on top of static background
• Remove source of errors (forgot to update a slide)
• Cleaner in general