Their outlines make them a bit darker and more detailed than the other layer, so they have more contrast with the background. They're a bit more noticeable. And finally, we have this layer. Its fill color is highly saturated, and its outlines are really dark. It has the highest visual hierarchy on this map. These polygons appear to be in the foreground, almost as though they are closer to you than the other layers. This new map has much better visual hierarchy than the old one, and not coincidentally, it looks nicer too. So if you're struggling with a map that doesn't look very good, try focusing on the visual hierarchy. And if you're struggling with visual hierarchy, try making everything the same color first. Then adjust the value and saturation for each layer so the important layers have high contrast with the background, and the other layers have low contrast with the background. That's great visual hierarchy.

Check out this map that I made. It's okay, but I'm going to make it better. Hi, I'm Heather, and I'm a cartographer. In this video, I'll show you an example in ArcGIS Online of improving a map's visual hierarchy by playing with color. Visual hierarchy is a design technique that lets people know which information on a map is the most important. Watch my other video to learn more about it. Colors have three attributes: hue, saturation, and value. And while understanding these three concepts is fairly simple, actually managing them all together effectively to design maps, I think, is difficult. So how can you make it easier? Well, I like to start by making everything the same color. This puts everything on an even playing field. That makes it a lot easier to increase the visual hierarchy of some layers and decrease it for others. I'll select the layer that I want to have the highest visual hierarchy, to stand out the most,

visual hierarchy. Brown is an inherently desaturated color, but this version of brown is the most saturated it can be. I'll move the dot almost all the way to the left to make the color really dull, and almost all the way to the top to make it really pale. Now this color has very low contrast with the background, so it has a very low visual hierarchy. I'll save this color so I can reuse it, and I'll reuse it right away for this middle layer. Now I have a problem where two of the layers look exactly the same, so I'll add an outline so I can tell them apart, and I'll use the same dark brown we started with. Let's review the map. First, I have the basemap. It is very pale and completely desaturated, so it reads as the background. Then I have these pale brown polygons. They're also desaturated. They almost feel like they're part of the basemap. Then I have these other pale brown polygons.

and I'll open its color picker. If I move this dot up and down, I will change the value of the color. That means how light or dark it is. Low value is a dark color; high value is a light color. And if I move it from left to right, I'll change the saturation of the color. That means how intense it is. Low saturation is a dull color, usually gray; high saturation is an intense color. I'll leave the dot up in the top right corner. It's now a high value, high saturation version of that brown that I started with. The high saturation will allow this color to pop on my map. You'll notice that I didn't touch the hue slider. I'm going to leave all colors in this map at the same hue to keep it simple and consistent. I'm only going to adjust value and saturation. If you find working with color difficult, you might want to try this trick too. Next, I'll select the layer that I want to have the lowest

Improve Visual Hierarchy With Color | Quick Cartography in ArcGIS

Improve Visual Hierarchy With Color | Quick Cartography in ArcGIS

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