Lab 4: Introduction to ArcMap

...And the finished product.

The Potentials of GIS

ESRI's ArcGIS is a very powerful program, it is evident from the very first time you begin to use and understand the extent of its abilities. Massive amounts of data that would otherwise just be numbers associated with a geographic coordinate on an excel spreadsheet, or possibly pins pricked into a map in some data collection and analysis center, are pulled together into a singular visual medium that is quite versatile to many applications. When one can witness many different data sets at once it can create a powerful analysis tool. As with the proposed airport expansion project that was worked on in lab 4, many measurements, boundaries and more can be layered over one another to show exactly where particular subject areas may be in a physical geographical setting. In this lab GIS was clearly a very powerful tool to use in order to view how empirical data of an airport and its attributes can adversely effect a community. This same application could easily be used for an array of differing applications in an array of differing fields. From environmental degradation analysis to forecasting political wins, GIS is clearly a needed tool for comprehending our ever changing world.

The software created by ESRI has two sides; As stated above it is a very powerful tool that can deal with great amounts of data and apply it to a geographically fixed area. This is why it has risen to be such a large field of work for many in geography as well as other fields. However, the actual program of ArcGIS is one of difficulty. I come from a graphic design background and use the Adobe Creative Suite frequently. I know how complex data sets are managed and how they are manipulated within a software program. For instance, in Adobe Illustrator you might have several thousand layers in a large illustration, each with its own attributes (color, vector shape, gradient, name, etc...), the program is set up to run very smooth, quick, and with the user in mind. It is not easy to learn by any respect, but the interface is much more up to date and takes advantage of human intuition. If you want a paintbrush, there is a paintbrush icon; if you want to change a color there is a swatch to click on. Anything you want to do you can within the program and it is relatively easy, as if the programmers remembered that humans are using the software. With ArcGIS it seems like the program is stuck in the mid-90s; light grey and pixelated icons that don't catch your eye and are thus difficult to remember, very slow and rigid user interface, difficult and lengthy paths to change data attributes when working on a file within the program, and so on. When designing software, they need to understand that programs for complex data manipulation should not be designed merely to find a means to a problem through tabulation but a user interface that helps in the process. Better usability means higher quality output material, plain and simple. The faster something works, the more work you can do; the easier it is to work the faster you can do it and the more you will be able to bear it. Apple and Adobe (and just recently Windows) have taken this idea into what we now know as computing. Open up Apple's Final Cut Pro, a program that has to deal with unprecedented amounts of data and quickly, and you will find a user friendly, clean, well designed environment for the professional video editor. Open up ESRI's ArcGIS and you will find just the opposite. Just because GIS is not as glamorous as designing next falls Vogue catalog (well... I think it is!) doesn't mean ArcGIS shouldn't have the same user-friendly environment. ESRI needs to get their act together and make something a bit more up-to-date, and please, a bit quicker, and most of all, make the zooming with a mouse like every other program in the world; scroll up is zoom in, not zoom out!

The Pitfalls of GIS

ESRI's somewhat outdated and unintuitive software is the pitfall of ArcGIS, but as far as GIS as a whole there are larger problems at play. When we went over neogeography in lab 3 it was evident that an easy to learn web 2.0 based mapping application is the voice of the people (as far a GIS is concerned) and has risen rapidly in popularity. This rise has shown the need for a community linked mapping program, something that ArcGIS just doesn't have. This rise has also shown that having mass amounts of data right at your fingertips is wildly helpful and benificial to productivity. With the whole of the internet as your source of data with an application like Google Maps you can generally find what you need to prove your point on a map. ArcGIS is a different story, it difficult to find shape files, especially if they are obscure, and this is another problem associated with GIS software. In ESRI's defense, the phrase 'garbage-in garbage-out' comes to play, if you want solid output then you need solid data to back it up, something that you just can not achieve from random people on the internet.

Another pitfall of GIS software is its relative unalienability to change in comparison to other applications that are used with neogeography. Sometimes it is imperative to have a map that is being updated constantly. This is something that is pretty easy to achieve in Google Maps, but in ArcGIS I can see it as being a problem. Once again, the unintuitive software does not help, but it is also the layout and design of the program that hinders the user from experiencing a quick, diverse, and easy to use program that lends itself to the frequent changes of life on earth. If ESRI designed their program with this is mind it would greatly help in the production of maps that closely mimic real life scenarios. The other issue with GIS is the fact it is seemingly 2-D in nature rather than 3-D. Programs like Google Earth are wonderful tools to really understand the topography of an area. One can zoom through the streets of Manhattan and see the skyscrapers, or dive into the Grand Canyon to see what it looks like from a birds eye view. There are many applications this can be used for, both commercially and personally that ArcGIS just cannot offer.