Prompt CartographyChapter 1
Lab 1: The Prompt Director's Chair
Practice turning a casual map request into a purpose-driven, audience-aware, constrained prompt-director brief.
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Lab directory
Labs
Browse the Prompt Cartography lab collection by chapter, type, and level.
Chapter 1
Lab 1A: Cross-LLM Director Check
Run the same guarded map prompt in two free LLMs and compare audience fit, guardrail obedience, clarity, and overconfidence.
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Chapter 1
Lab 1B: Audience Swap
Keep the map topic and purpose fixed, change only the audience, and observe how the recommended design shifts.
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Chapter 1
Lab 1C: Constraint Stress Test
Add one strong design constraint and ask the LLM to explain what tradeoffs the constraint creates.
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Chapter 2
Lab 2: From Casual Prompt to Cartographic Design Artifact
Build a reusable prompt packet from a casual request by applying CRAFT, separating prompt roles, and treating prompt revisions as design artifacts.
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Chapter 2
Lab 2A: Prompt Autopsy with CRAFT
Diagnose a weak cartographic prompt before revising it, then compare weak and directive outputs.
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Chapter 2
Lab 2B: Prompt Roles in a Mini Design Team
Simulate design assistant, cartographic critic, and prompt editor roles using ordinary free LLM chats.
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Chapter 3
Lab 3: Designing Cartographic Memory
Build a cartographic memory packet, test simulated retrieval, and revise memory through chunking and critique.
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Chapter 3
Lab 3A: Strategic Forgetting Audit
Audit a memory packet by deciding what to keep, narrow, or retire, then test how maintained memory changes an LLM output.
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Chapter 4
Lab 4: Build a Prompt-to-Map Pipeline
Create a durable prompt-to-map workflow that separates specification, production, critique, and repair.
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Chapter 4
Lab 4A: Spec Drift Audit
Track where a map drifts away from its original design specification and revise the prompt chain.
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Chapter 5
Lab 5: Ethical Provenance and Privacy Packet
Create a provenance, privacy, and responsibility packet for an AI-assisted map workflow.
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Chapter 5
Lab 5A: Privacy and Representation Stress Test
Stress-test a map idea for privacy, representation, and possible downstream harm.
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Chapter 5
Part I Capstone: From Idea to Prompted Map Concept
Synthesize Part I by turning a map concept into a structured, critique-ready prompt cartography plan.
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Chapter 6
Lab 6: The Critique Pipeline Dossier
Prove that a working map is still worthy of publication.
CoreIntermediate
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Chapter 6
Lab 6A: Keeper Prompt Trial
Test whether a critique prompt deserves reuse across maps.
OptionalIntermediate
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Chapter 6
Lab 6B: Metrics on Trial
Use numbers as witnesses, not judges.
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Chapter 7
Lab 7: Build a Task-Specific Data Pipeline
Find, evaluate, curate, harmonize, and merge datasets with natural language.
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Chapter 7
Lab 7A: Semantic Search Duel
Compare keyword searching, semantic prompting, and reliability-aware prompting.
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Chapter 7
Lab 7B: Merge Clinic
Repair a messy join plan before it becomes a misleading map.
OptionalIntermediate
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Chapter 8
Lab 8: Prompting Map Form and Visual Dialect
Use Dondis-style visual language to direct rhetorically powerful map aesthetics.
CoreIntermediate
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Chapter 8
Lab 8A: Same Data, Four Visual Dialects
Compare how style changes trust, emotion, and interpretation.
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Chapter 8
Lab 8B: Style Drift Autopsy
Find where an iterative prompt sequence loses its visual identity.
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Chapter 9
Lab 9: The Map Elements Specification
Defeat LLM defaults by directing titles, extent, controls, hierarchy, layout, legends, and insets.
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Chapter 9
Lab 9A: Default Autopsy Drill
Practice identifying and replacing silent map-element defaults.
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Chapter 9
Lab 9B: Extent and Interface Court
Judge whether zoom, pan, filters, sliders, and controls deserve to exist.
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Chapter 9
Lab 9C: Legend and Inset Clinic
Turn support elements into explanations instead of decoration.
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Chapter 10
Lab 10: Palette as Argument
Design color palettes that explain data logic, guide emotion, and survive critique.
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Chapter 10
Lab 10A: Scheme Mismatch Trial
Show how the wrong color scheme can misrepresent the data.
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Chapter 10
Lab 10B: Palette Stress Test
Revise color for accessibility, contrast, and cultural interpretation.
OptionalIntermediate
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Chapter 10
Lab 10C: Same Data, Different Color Arguments
Compare rhetorical palettes while keeping data logic stable.
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Chapter 11
Lab 11: The Typographic Voice System
Specify map typography for tone, hierarchy, legibility, and resilient web delivery.
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Chapter 11
Lab 11A: Typography Tone Audit
Compare how type changes trust, warmth, authority, and usability.
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Chapter 11
Lab 11B: Label Hierarchy Clinic
Build readable label rules for points, lines, and areas.
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Chapter 11
Lab 11C: Fallback Failure Drill
Protect map typography when preferred fonts do not load.
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Chapter 12
Lab 12: The Symbology Specification
Design symbols that encode category, quantity, hierarchy, and uncertainty without default drift.
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Chapter 12
Lab 12A: Default Marker Autopsy
Replace generic web-map markers with symbols that carry meaning.
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Chapter 12
Lab 12B: Proportional Symbol Truth Check
Verify that symbol size represents quantity honestly.
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Chapter 12
Lab 12C: SVG and PNG Symbol Prompt Duel
Compare raster and vector symbol prompting under tight constraints.
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Chapter 13
Lab 13: The Thematic Method Trial
Choose the right thematic representation and make its default lie visible.
CoreIntermediate
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Chapter 13
Lab 13A: Choropleth Caution Clinic
Test whether choropleth mapping is honest for a dataset.
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Chapter 13
Lab 13B: Density Map Showdown
Compare dots, heat maps, and hexbins for point data.
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Chapter 13
Lab 13C: Multivariate Restraint Test
Decide when simultaneous variables help or overload users.
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Chapter 14
Lab 14: The Animation Worthiness Test
Specify temporal motion only when it explains change better than static maps.
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Chapter 14
Lab 14A: Animate or Small Multiple?
Compare motion against static temporal alternatives.
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Chapter 14
Lab 14B: Stop-Frame vs Smooth Motion
Match transition type to temporal data structure.
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Chapter 14
Lab 14C: Motion Constraint Checklist
Turn lively animation into accessible, user-controlled temporal design.
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Chapter 15
Lab 15: The Interactive Behavior Blueprint
Choreograph disclosure, commitment, memory, control, motion, and user flow.
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Chapter 15
Lab 15A: State and Disclosure Audit
Make legends, filters, defaults, and reset behavior explicit.
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Chapter 15
Lab 15B: Tooltip vs Pop-Up Commitment
Stage information from glance to intent.
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Chapter 15
Lab 15C: Scope Creep Control Court
Reject interactive features that do not serve the map.
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Chapter 15
Lab 15D: User Flow Score
Sequence exploration, narrative, and analysis without chaos.
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Chapter 16
Lab 16: Direct an Earlier Map into Excellence
Use the full prompt cartography workflow to refine a previous map concept.
CoreIntermediate
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Chapter 16
Lab 16A: Readiness Is Not Perfection
Decide when a map is ready to publish without endless refinement.
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Chapter 17
Lab 17: The Map Maintenance Dossier
Design a stewardship pipeline for a map after publication.
CoreIntermediate
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