Case Study: The question was “Where is the nearest park?” The interface did not need to begin with a map.
I designed address-based tools that returned useful results directly and made the map optional. The approach was recognized as pioneering and became part of a broader shift toward service-oriented use of government geographic data.
RESULTS: map-optional model recognized as a national first • adopted nationwide by governments
Context
Many governments, including Las Vegas, relied on expensive enterprise GIS software systems to answer most spatial questions about parks, polling locations, and elected officials — typically by returning a map.
“That project was THE spark to where we are today, full stop.”
The key insight
I questioned the convention that spatial data must only be presented spatially. The map wasn’t a neutral container for the information — it was itself a design choice, and not always the right one. What residents actually wanted wasn’t a map; it was an answer: “Where is the nearest park with tennis courts?” “Who is my councilperson?” “Where do I go to vote?”
What I did
I designed web and mobile applications — including a park-finder — that let residents enter their address and the features they wanted (playground, dog park, walking trail) and get a straightforward list of matching results. The map was removed as an intermediary; residents got their answer directly, but were also given the option of a map after the spatial question was answered.
Results
- Recognized by the Center for Digital Government as a pioneering use of GIS on a government website — using geographic data to power a plain-language, task-based tool rather than defaulting to a traditional map interface
- Governments around the country soon followed suit, adopting the same map-optional approach to spatial questions on their own sites
- Anthony Willis — the colleague I partnered with on this project — and I went on to present this work together at multiple national conferences under the title “GIS: With or Without a Map.”
The long-term impact
What started as a website feature turned out to mark a genuine turning point for the city’s GIS program itself — though the credit for what came after belongs to Anthony and the team he’s led since, not to me. My role was the spark: asking “can GIS do this?”, handing Anthony mockups of how the citizen-facing tool could work, and introducing the usability thinking that reframed the map from product to means-to-an-end.
According to Anthony, now Enterprise GIS and Programming Manager for the City of Las Vegas, that shift in thinking was the point where the team began moving from a department-scoped, map-centered GIS system toward an enterprise-wide, service-oriented GIS ecosystem. As Anthony put it, of where the original project led: “That project was THE spark to where we are today, full stop.”
What this demonstrates
- Questioning a default that everyone else treated as a requirement
- Designing for how people actually ask questions, not how a system is built to answer them
- A reframe with enough staying power to influence an entire industry’s approach, years after the original work