There are a few ways to change how your map is displayed:
Turn layers on or off
Change the Basemap
Change the number of bins
Change the break methodology
Change the shading options and/or the colors
Change the fill opacity
Change the line width and opacity
Turn Layers On or Off
Under Map Layers, clicking the eye icon on the layer you want to turn off will make it invisible on the map and remove it from the legend. Clicking the eye icon again will put it back on the map. All the data settings will stay, even if you turn the layer off and save the map.
Pro Tip: When viewing your map, you can interact with the legend to turn off layers or bins, giving your readers more control over what they see.
Pro Tip: You can duplicate any layer whenever you want. This will allow you to make small changes here and there to see how it impacts your map without starting each layer from scratch.
Change the Basemap
You can change the basemap (the background map behind your layers) by clicking the dropdown under Map Style in the Settings section. The default in mySidewalk is Streets, which allows your viewers to orient themselves when looking at the map.
Change the Number of Bins
By default, the number of bins for any data that has at least 5 different values, is 5. You might want to change this if you only have a few sub-geographies on the map or if the values in the bins don’t change very much. In these cases, decreasing the number of bins to 3 or 4 could be helpful. You can do this by clicking on the dropdown menu for number of bins located beneath the more options link.
Change the Break Methodology
A break methodology determines how your data is split into bins. You can choose:
Natural breaks (default): Groups data where the biggest differences in values occur.
Equal intervals: Divides the data into equal-sized ranges, such as 0-20%, 20-40%, etc.
Equal count breaks: Distributes data based on percentiles. Each bin will have the same number of regions.
Custom breaks: Define your own breakpoints based on specific values. This can be helpful for identifying where goals are, or are not, being met.
Adjust Shading and Colors
Navigate to Edit Data Styling to change the colors or shading of your map layers. You can choose from Monochromatic, Preset, or Custom color options.
Change Fill Opacity
Use the slider under Fill Opacity to control how transparent the layer colors are. This is useful when you want to see features like street names or landmarks beneath the data display.
Change the line width and opacity
It may be hard to see data for subgeographies in densely populated areas. To change the width, use the slider under Line Width. The default line width is 1 when your layer is styled by data, and you can choose widths between 1 and 10.
You can also change the opacity of the outline just like the fill. We recommend 20% when the layer is styled by data.
If the geographies are still hard to see, try removing the outlines altogether by unchecking the Outline box above Line Color.