ATP Tennis World Tour Venue Map 2015

Why we love it

We count on maps to show us where things are, of course. When a map tries to show everything at once, it can be difficult to see anything at all. This map avoids clutter by clustering locations and inviting us to zoom in for more details. We love the clean interface, the fact that you can find information in just a few clicks, and the option to filter by category. Tennis (maps) anyone?

Why it works

You can click symbols to see venue details or find venues ordered by date along the side panel. The basemap is aerial imagery—actual pictures of the earth’s surface—so you can discover venue trivia such as whether they play on clay, grass, or a hard court. This map works because it uses logical icons to limit the amount of words and create a strong visual style.

Important steps

Begin with Leaflet

Use the Leaflet plugin for ArcGIS Services which currently supports loading Esri basemaps and feature services, as well as tiled, dynamic, and image map services.

Download Esri Leaflet
Use x/y coordinate values for your map

To create a calendar of events map, you’ll either need x/y coordinate values, or at a minimum the venue or city name to locate the event.
Get specific with location

If you only have a city or venue name, you will probably want to perform a reverse geocoding operation to search for the nearest address or intersection for the event location in your data.

Learn about reverse geocoding
Time depends on design

The development time will depend on whether you take a fully customized UI/development route or use one of Esri’s Story Map templates.

Check out Story Maps

Data and software

Grab a calendar of events from the organization you are mapping. In this case, it was the 2015 calendar from the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) World Tour. Software used: ArcGIS Desktop, Esri’s Story Map.

Explore the ATP World Tour calendar
Analysis

Think about how users will search for an event — by time (week or month of the year) or by event classification. Then organize the data into meaningful categories.
Time

The time you need depends on the number of events and how well the reverse geocoding process matches up with your data. You may also have to do some manual work.

Plan to avoid clutter

Study the spread and density of your events and determine how you will handle clustering at various scales.
Organize your grouping

Plan a logical grouping of the events and determine how you will present these groupings.
Expose important information

Think about what information you want to expose to the user via menus, and what information you want to embed in your map pop-up.
Ensure the map is fast and responsive

Users are becoming more and more impatient with apps that don’t load quickly or are cumbersome to use.