Dewberry Senior Geospatial Technology Manager Sid Pandey shares about using Esri's Experience Builder tool to create a virtual engagement platform to help showcase best fishing practices for anger's in Georgia.
Hi, I'm Sid Pandey, a senior geospatial technology manager with Dewberry based in Fairfax, Virginia, and this is my project story. With all the technology available, many of us were able to transition to a remote and virtual workplace almost seamlessly when the pandemic began, but some things are still hard to replicate in the virtual world, and it can be difficult to connect with your audience and keep them engaged while sharing information. One of the major benefits of a virtual world is using virtual engagement tools, which opens the door to a larger and generally more diverse audience. We recently used Esri's Next Generation Experience Builder to develop an application that helped the Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary, the Nature Conservancy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA with conveying best practices for fishing at Gray's Reef virtually to anglers in Georgia.
Prior to the pandemic, these organizations and other partners hosted in-person workshops to educate anglers about the importance of using best practices for fishing to prevent trauma to deep water fish like snappers and groupers. During the pandemic, those meetings became virtual and thus an interactive and engaging tool was needed to convey information. Instead of relying on virtual meetings and PowerPoint presentations, the team decided to develop an interactive experience using Esri's Experience Builder that would be easy to use, engaging, informative, and easily accessed from the Gray's Reef website.
We developed a simple application that operates like a walk-up kiosk. Users have an easy to use navigation bar across the bottom of the screen that helps them understand how far along in the experience they are, while allowing them to easily jump ahead or refer back to previous information. To make the experience engaging and interactive, we utilized the Experience Builder's capabilities to create pop-ups or windows for additional information that appear upon a user clicking a button or a link. This feature allows us to include high resolution images to give anglers an idea of what they have to look forward to at the reef, the equipment they should be using, and some of the signs of trauma that they need to keep an eye out for in the fish they are reeling in.
The experience also allows you to embed resources from other locations, including maps, websites, videos, and applications. To help explain the difference between various types of sea floor at the reef and to showcase where anglers are not allowed to fish, we developed and embedded an interactive story map. To make this experience accessible and inclusive, we leveraged Esri's Experience Builder's capabilities to enable alternate text and tool tips allowing us to appropriately describe what was displayed on the screen for anyone using a screen reader or other tools.
The guide provides a tool that is easily shared with anglers everywhere and accessed at any time and was made possible by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary, the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, the Nature Conservancy, the Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant Program, Georgia's Department of Natural Resources Coastal Resource Division, Fish Smart, and NOAA Fisheries.
Learn more about the experience here: https://graysreef.noaa.gov/visit/fishing/best-practices/