Esri in One Hour: Alison Sizer on Story Maps

Alison was the first and last person I met with, besides my internship mentor, which feels like a proper bookending of my summer (can we somehow make that a story(maps) pun?!). Thank you, Alison, for being a welcoming introduction to my first Esri product, Story Maps, and for talking more about yourself and your work in this meeting we had at the end of summer!

Alison and I mainly talked about Product Development in this chat, as I haven’t connected with too many people from other Esri departments about the development lifecycle of products that have set release dates for different versions. Story Maps is an early online product for Esri, and is used by so many people. It provides a great example, then, of how maintenance and new features are matched with making sure all products built in Story Maps work correctly through each version. This is a huge task, and I so respect this small Story Maps team for maintaining so many people’s stories throughout these modifications.

The Story Maps team is made up of developers, content creators, designers, and a combination of all three. The Story Maps gallery was one of the first things I looked through upon learning about Esri, and provides many great examples of interactive storytelling and both easy and emotional introductions to mapping in the context of narrative.

Story Maps currently have five templates. Alison works on two templates in particular: Journal and Series. These are the two she helps maintain, fix, and improve with release cycles. A new template may be in the works sometime soon, which I am excited to see.

We talked about accessibility. Alison had been a great resource for accessible web development throughout the summer, because she has been working in-depth on improving the accessibility of Story Maps with the previous and current releases. Story Maps has now implemented tab-through keyboard navigation, and is also working on how to make the builder interface encourage new accessibility standards, such as alt text for image inputs.

Alison’s path to Esri went through different avenues in the DC area. She initially worked for a government contractor, but, like many others I talked to at Esri, needed more meaning in her work. Like others, Esri’s production of software that actually helps people and fills needs in the real world resonated with her. She worked as a developer in PS for a while, but then joined the development team of Story Maps. She pointed out how much people love Story Maps. They are often used for presentations, and are easily digestible by a wide audience.

Speaking of presentations, she made a short presentation for our meeting on Story Maps and Product Development. She highlighted the main distinction of Product Development: the release cycle. The release cycle guides code in a set release pathway, involving deadlines such as the “string freeze” when no more strings can be input for translation. She talked about release night and the patch week that follows.

The big release of the year for most Esri products happens in June, right before the UC. Otherwise, they follow a quarterly release pattern.

Enhancement requests and bug reports guide a lot of product development. I had talked through some of this with Andy, who also noted the challenges of how many people influence feature development for a product.

The Story Maps team consists of four developers and one Product Engineer, which is smaller than I anticipated. Working between multiple developers can be a challenge that is met with collaboration tools, decoding previous versioning of code, and reconciling issues as they arise. Alison noted that one of her big guiding principles now as she edits code is to change as little code as possible because the effects of changing some elements could be wide-reaching. Code is also checked with extensive testing, which all of the developers take part in.

Another thing different in Story Maps compared to most PS projects is internationalization. Story Maps is used globally, and must be internationalized into all supported languages. There are approximately 30 languages all text is translated into. All strings must be templated.

These days, Alison characterizes her job as “fixing.” She uniquely loves complicated problem solving of bugs that others may get stuck on because she is drawn to these complex and interesting problems. This was great to hear put into words by someone that I respect, because I do not know many individuals that are drawn to work like this, and I really started to understand the thrill of this complex problem solving, even for a minor bug, that she feels in this development work. Other people on the team are tasked with building good looking examples, and there is a content development team of around 6 people. It was great to hear Alison’s perspective on what she liked from Product Development, which is very different, in most cases, from what would draw a content developer to more of the interactive storytelling appeal of Story Maps.

I also asked about the potential to use Story Maps even if you are not an ArcGIS Online subscriber. As I start to think about leaving my time at Esri this summer, I am trying to gain resources to share with myself and others. Story Maps was a great entry point for the power of mapping to communicate information in engaging way, especially for public audiences, and I would love to share this with more people. Alison, while we were talking, remembered that a user can register for a free ArcGIS Public account, which would allow them to use Story Maps and include a basic map they would create. This is great! I’m so thrilled that Story Maps can be really the first gatekeeper to the potential of ArcGIS, which can even be engaged with for free before even an ArcGIS Online subscription. I’ll definitely be sharing this!

Alison closed our conversation with reminding to me to CLICK SLOWER when editing and presenting my final Cascade Story Map review (yes, I did click like a maniac at the beginning of summer, giving rise to a number of saving issues). Thank you so much for your guidance and support, even from DC, all summer, Alison! You were a very friendly face to video chat with during my first week, and have made me feel welcome ever since. Thank you, and good luck with the next release dates!