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Design disaster response maps to be viewed on WhatsApp

Had a brief discussion on a call today about the pros and cons of static information products (images or PDFs) vs. interactive dashboards.

I lean towards the static side, with the onus on the analyst to draw out what is useful or meaningful from the data and present a narrative to the viewer.

The discussion on format reminded me of an episode of the Minds Behind the Maps podcast I listened to back in December with Jean-Martin Bauer from the World Food Programme. At one point he talks about understanding the information-sharing context in the country you're working in, and says in one case he had been producing maps in poster format by default but would have been better focusing on designs that could be easily shared and viewed in WhatsApp since thats how they got shared in the end. Link here - the bit I'm thinking of is around the 30-minute mark.

We often default to producing maps in A4 or A0 format as standard, but it might be worth trying some mobile-first formats too to see if they're useful.