Create a Mapper Experience to visualize products

The Mapper Experience lets you visually map your products and services. You can highlight specific products and features in a visually recognizable setting. It’s ideal for showing how your offering is an excellent fit inside a customer’s world, whether a factory, a lab, or an office.

To build this impressive Experience for your users, you add clickable elements that you place on an image map. Selecting a clickable element can open a Page with more information, links, or files from your library.

See how it works

Key features

• Visually demonstrate the value of your products on a map
• Show product features and benefits for a particular environment
• Use hotspots, text, images, and click zones for an interactive experience
• Link these elements to Pages, other maps, external websites, and assets

You need this to succeed

The quick way

1. Draft a plan of what you would like to show.
2. Go to the Experiences library and select New Experience.
3. Build your structure by adding nodes in the Experience Builder.
4. Upload a background image for your node.
5. Add elements:
   • Add Hotspots on a map to highlight specific products.
   • Create a Click zone to designate selectable areas on your map.
   • Add Text for additional information.
   • Select an Image to use on your map.
6. For each of these elements, use the link tab to refer to:
   • Pages that show product information
   • Files from your Files library
   • A website URL
   • Another Mapper Experience
7. Customize your Design with icons, logos, and colors to match your company's branding.
8. Save the Mapper Experience.
9. Assign the Mapper Experience to users and user groups.
10. See how sellers use the Mapper Experience to guide a conversation.

Do this step by step

The Mapper Experience contains clickable elements that you place on a background image.

You can add:

• a hotspot
• text
• an image (.PNG, .JPG)
• a click zone

These clickable elements link to content. For example, a hotspot can link to a Page with all the information about a product. A click zone can cover an area of your map that links to a file in your Files library. Added text can link to your company's website. Linking to another Mapper Experience can create a visual story where you dive deeper into product details.

You can link elements to:

• a Page from your Pages library
• a file from your Files library
• a website URL
• another Mapper Experience

Build the Mapper Experience

1. On the Libraries tab, select Experiences from the Distribution section and click New Experience.
2. Provide an Experience name, then select Mapper Experience. Click Create. The Experience Builder will open. You'll see two tabs:
   • Navigation: This is where you create the nodes and clickable elements that link to Pages, maps, external websites, and assets.
   • Design: This is where you can change the look and feel of the Mapper template.
3. In the Navigation Layout window, click the + icon and give your node a logical Name. This is your first parent node.
4. Once the parent node is created, the Node Configuration window opens.
   • On the Node Configuration window, you can choose to toggle on the Enable Shortcut for Homepage option.
     • If you have multiple parent nodes with these shortcuts enabled, all your maps with the Enable Shortcut for Homepage option on are displayed on a home screen, where your users can select the shortcut icon to go to the desired map. By default, the template loads the first map found in the navigation architecture, which becomes the homepage.
     • If you enabled the shortcut for the Homepage, upload your shortcut icon (100x100px max).
   • Enabling Map opens the Map Configuration window and allows you to display an image instead of the node name in your user's navigation menu.
     • On the Map Configuration window, you can choose to enable Display map in navigation.
     • Click Edit in the Map Configuration window to upload the background image (4Mb max), then click Save.
5. Add child nodes by clicking the + icon in the Navigation Layout window.
   • You can create empty nodes that serve as a folder to group your products.
   • Your next child node can be another folder or a map, where you can link to a Page, Asset, URL, or another map. A map is configured in the same way as a map on a parent node.
6. You can keep adding nodes by selecting them and clicking the + icon. To rearrange the structure, drag and drop the nodes where you want them.
7. Once your structure is complete, click Preview to see how it looks for your users.

Use a hotspot on a map

Hotspots highlight specific items on your map. You can add and modify labels, links, icons, and lines.

1. Click Edit in the Map Configuration window.
2. Select Hotspot in the list of elements.
3. Click on the icon to drag it to its position, and then click on the map to create the connecting line. You can bend the line by clicking on it and dragging the dot to another location.
4. Configure the tabs:
   • Label: You can change the Label, Font (Helvetica, Roboto, OpenSans), Font style (bold, italics, underline), Text alignment, Font size and color. The Report label field is used for reporting purposes and can be edited.
   • Link: You can link this Hotspot to a Page, a file, a URL, or another map.
   • Icon: Upload your customized icon. If you don't want to use an icon toggle this off.
   • Line: Change the link color without changing the label color.
5. Click Save.

Create a click zone on a map

Make a part of your map selectable by creating click zones.

1. Select Click zone in the list of elements.
2. You can link this click zone to a Page, an asset, a URL, or another map. The Report Label field is used for reporting purposes and can be edited.
3. Click Save.

Add text on a map

1. Select Text in the list of elements.
2. You can rearrange the location of the text by dragging and dropping.
3. Customize the Link and the Label. Like any other element, you can link this to a Page, a file, a URL, or another map. The Report Label field is used for reporting purposes and can be edited.
4. Click Save.

Add an image on your map

Another clickable element you can add is an Image (PNG, JPG). You can use this, for example, to enlarge a certain item on your map

1. Select Image in the list of elements.
2. On the Image tab, upload your image. The Report Label field is used for reporting purposes and can be edited.
3. On the Link tab, link the image to a Page, a file, a URL, or another map.
4. Click Save.

Use Pages in your Mapper to include product information

You can provide related information about a topic or persona on a Page. Pages can show columns of associated assets, links, Experiences, and image galleries of your products. Read more about creating visually appealing Pages.

Design

Click the Design tab in the Experience Builder to view the global design options for the Mapper Experience.

1. Shortcut page:
   • Page style: You can upload a background image and a home logo. If you enable the Enable Shortcut for Homepage option in your parent nodes, these will be displayed on the home screen. The width of your logo is not limited; however, we recommend a height of 100px.

     Note: It is also possible to upload a GIF as a logo. See the Supported file types article for more information.

   • Preview: This shows the layout of the Shortcut page.
2. Navigation:

   • Main colors: The color background for the navigation stays the same no matter which node was visited. You can choose one or two colors to mix in the background. When mixing two colors, both colors are applied following a radiant. One color is used for the middle and the other for the surroundings.

     There is also a principle of inheritance of the background. The background of a parent node is applied to all child nodes unless a specific background is uploaded in a given child node. As soon as a child node becomes the parent, the same principle applies again.

     The logo you upload here is the header logo on the user's screen.

   • Buttons: This is where you can define the buttons' colors. The Primary button is the color of the menu button. The Secondary button is for the X icon to close a page.
   • Navigation sidebar: This is the menu your users can use to navigate without using the map. You can change the Background and the Font here.
   • Preview: This shows the layout of the navigation.
3. To get an exact idea of how your Mapper Experience will look, click the Preview button at the top right.
4. Click Save Experience when done.

Assign access to the Experience

1. Click on the Experience in the Experiences library.
2. From the Experience details panel, click the pencil icon in the User access section.
3. Click in the Assigned user group(s) field, then search for and select the user groups you want to assign to the Experience. The total number of selected groups is listed in the field. You can review the group names listed below.
4. You can also click in the Assigned individual user(s) field to search for and select individual users. The total number of selected individual users is listed in the field. You can review the user names listed below.
5. Click Save changes when done.

Start sharing content

Your users can start sharing content when opening this Showpad Experience.

1. Navigating is done by clicking on the clickable elements on the map or using the Menu on the left side of the screen.
2. The application's top right corner has a fullscreen button that can also be used to exit fullscreen mode.
3. On a smartphone, Experiences look slightly different due to the screen size of your device.