Expressive mapping
Drop a pin, sketch an area, shade across several strokes or trace a route. The original mark is retained alongside the interpreted geography.
a Good Ship tool
Ask people about the places that matter to them.
Map my Patch brings questions and maps together. Invite people to drop pins, sketch, shade or trace places online — or print a paper pack and bring the marks back in from a phone photo.
Questions become easier to understand when they have a place.
Use points, areas and simple questions to gather a richer picture of a neighbourhood, service, building or community.
01
Ask a useful question
Build a short set of questions about participants and the places, routes or areas you want them to mark.
02
Choose the right surface
Share a link or code for digital participation, or print a registered paper pack for workshops and offline work.
03
See the picture build
Bring paper and digital responses together on one map, review the detail, and export the underlying data when you need to go further.
Built for real participation
People do not experience places as neat GIS geometry.
Map my Patch keeps the human mark visible. Use precise tools when they help, looser expressive marks when they say more, and paper when handing somebody a screen is the wrong interaction.
Paper responses
Print registered A3 or A4 packs, collect ordinary pen marks, then photograph the completed maps back into Map my Patch.
Helpful recovery
The paper flow aligns the photo, separates added ink, proposes A–H label matches and reads clear ticks from the printed answer pages.
One dataset
Paper and digital responses end up together in the same response view and exports, with paper provenance kept for review.
Paper stays reviewable
Photo recovery is deliberately confidence-aware. If a mark, handwritten label or answer is uncertain, Map my Patch leaves it for a person to check rather than inventing precision.
Join a map
Already been invited?
Enter the code you were given to open the map and add your response.
Where it came from
Map my Patch was originally created by Tom Watson through Data for Action, drawing on work around neighbourhoods, participation and question-led data. It is now maintained and developed by The Good Ship.