Forum Discussion
Chicago Map Challenge (Mobile Layout)
I recently moved to Chicago and am historically terrible with directions! I wanted to learn the 77 Community Areas in a fun and interactive way. Unable to find a pre-built learning solution, I built one myself. It’s been fun sharing it with fellow Chicagoans.
Try it out!
To learn more about this project, visit my portfolio to see a full write-up.
This is an amazing project Sam! I love it. I especially like how you broke this into regions so a learner could learn one at a time. And, love the color scheme choice. How long did it take you?
The choice to make it in a mobile format is excellent. A phone is the most likely place I would use something like this.
I just moved to the Los Angeles area and could really use something like this....There are over 100 neighborhoods. At any given time, I don't know where I am in relationship to other neighborhoods or home. Maybe I should make something similar.Hi CherylPenn-0f0f , thank you! I've been casually working on the project for probably 4-5 months now when I've had spare time. Overall it probably took me about 40-50 hours. The most extensive work was getting the maps correct and programming all of the triggers--as well as testing that everything works MANY times.
If you ever make something similar I'd love to see it! I hope your move to LA is going well. Someone recently told me it takes 12-14 months to actually settle into a place...
WOW SamKauffman-777, this is great! I love how interactive it is. I'm not too familiar with Chicago's neighborhoods, but this project pulled me in - I was completely intrigued. I could definitely see something like this being used for geography lessons all over the world.
I'd love to hear more about your design process! What led you to choose this approach over other options? Did you experiment with different ideas before landing on this one, or was it your first concept from the start?
Thanks so much for sharing this - it's inspiring!
Hi KellOrding, thank you for your feedback!
Besides creating something that could help me get to know Chicago's community areas, I knew from the start that I wanted to create a vertical, mobile layout learning experience. I wanted it to feel like a mobile app as much as possible.
I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and it was challenging to make it bug-free and fully functional with all of the triggers. I also wanted to give learners the ability to be able to choose either Easy mode (that has hints) and Hard mode (no hints) so they could replay the experience with varying levels of difficulty.
All the best,
Sam
