Sometimes I just do a general Google search (from Chrome's omnibar with Instant searching disabled) for the directions I need. It usually auto-detects it's a maps query and has a card ready to go with options. Then I don't have to wait for suggestions to load or for the map to pan around.
It used to work fine. The big problem with the current version is the almost complete absence of legible affordances.
There are all kinds of buttons with logos on them that do stuff. But until you learn what they do, their functions are mysterious.
Basic things like Traffic used to be obvious, one-click features. Now they're hidden in the burger menu, so at best they're two clicks away, and at worst a non-trivial percentage of users has no idea they exist. (Etc.)
Not all the time, but enough of a difference that it feels seriously hindered post redesign.
I have no idea how to switch between satellite and map view. I have no idea where to look for that option - or if that option exists. There's a burger menu, so I tap that. There's a list of options. Satellite is in that list, and is highlighted. The option I want, and I don't know what it's called, doesn't appear to be in that list of menu items. I tap the map to collapse the burger menu. I hold the screen then release. A pin is dropped. I don't think I want a pin, but I have no idea how I dismiss the pin. When the pin is placed a small thing pops up at the bottom of the window. None of that looks relevant. I, completely accidentally, pull it, and a bit more appears. None of that is relevant either (but now I've accidentally discovered how to get street view). I pull it again because something happened the first time and yet more stuff appears, but nothing relevant. I realise that it can't be this hard, so I go back to the burger menu and unintuitively click "satellite". I don't want satellite, and this menu item is already highlighted, and it never occurs to me that someone would put a toggleable item in a list of menu entries without any indication that it's a toggle. But bamn there it is.
So, how would I change Maps? Just put a few more affordances in there. Maybe watch how people unfamiliar with the app try to do stuff.
There are lots of things I like about maps. There's some churn in businesses on my street and maps always seems happy to change info.
In the past there was a ton of research into user interaction with UI. Obviously loads of that fails on mobile, but Google is a smart data driven company that could create a new body of work for mobile.
I guess it's just the sacrifice we make for a cool looking web page.
1. Ensure you can enter two addresses into the search delimited by " to " and it be able to correctly split into directions, as you would expect. I tend to expect this to work and it took maps messing this up several times on different occasions to burn it into my head to put the destination address in the search, then click on directions, then enter my starting address.
2. If I type in "from (address)" and search it should show my address in the top of the directions from/to and focus on the "to" field. This is really broken currently, because it always seems to think I want directions to somewhere instead of from. Similarly, if I type in "to (address)" it should open directions and place the address in the correct field.
3. Sometimes the "near me" feature doesn't work. Try it with all sorts of things like "bathroom near me" and see how well it works.
Speaking of mass transportation, it'd be great if Alphabet could spend some money and effort on that. It makes much more sense from a business point-of-view than Google cars do- how much more R&D money is going to be sunk on that before all is said and done? Will it be worth it? Electric cars have to get their energy from somewhere, and everyone having their own car takes a toll on the environment. I understand it's a big place, but if you have the money to roll out fiber and wifi everywhere, you can buy buses, which are much cheaper.
- Stop hijacking basic user interactions like the mouse click. On desktop, if you click the map it will reverse geocode where you clicked (and show you the nearest road to it.) Although I understand the utility of such a feature, I have never ever wanted that. I live in NYC and no one has a car. I just want to change focus off of the constantly expanding and moving navigation window thing. I search for something, then click the background, and now my search is gone. Then I click the location area to get my search back, and nothing happens. I click the background to get rid of the stupid useless direction window, and now everything is gone. Oh, except the thing I clicked is now reverse geocoded for me. Infuriating.
- I challenge people to do the following on desktop: share a location in the middle of a park (hint: drop a pin first)
I (and all my friends) switched to here.com maps after Google has horribly old (2005) data, has a horrible UI, and is generally unusable. In many cities in my region whole districts are completely missing from the maps[1], MapMaker is not available, and in general it’s just a huge mess.
Even worse: It loads so slowly (compared to here.com or bing.com or openstreetmap.org) that sometimes it takes several minutes to load an area while competitors load instantly.
And then there are cities where Google tried to add the new 3D buildings, but the result is so horrible that the satellite view is not usable anymore, for example Vienna [2]
[1]: Compare https://goo.gl/maps/e4awg https://www.here.com/?map=54.35326,10.0714,17,satellite [2]: https://goo.gl/maps/LUHiN
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And here some suggestions:
- Allow the user to turn of 3D buildings. They are annoying, kill loading times, and are buggy and just a mess of polygons that looks more like abstract art than buildings.
- Use recent satellite imagery. When Bing and Here maps have images that are 10 (!) years newer than what Google uses, it’s just inacceptable
- Stop having a UI where everything changes while people click on it – Google’s own guidelines say that you should keep stuff predictable. Especially due to the slow loading times people often try to click somewhere, while they try to click some box moves, and they click something completely different. This is extremely frustrating, I’d even begin to call it clickjacking.
I, and everyone I know now switched to here, and we’ll probably stick with that for the next years.
Also, the new faux-3d effect in the satellite imagery is really irritating.
- goo.gl-Link to this map
- Terrain-mode
- collapse white search box w/o loosing all entered data
- enter 'from:xxx to:yyy' for navigation
- extra stops (routing)
The best thing about maps that I really love (and why I am willing to fight with the UI) is the address recognition: I can put almost anything into the search box and it will find the address I had in mind. No street/city separation, no extra box for businesses, no strict order of name, address, zip code, city. And if it's unclear to maps, the suggestions almost always include what I had in mind.
- extra stops: once you've set up a basic route, a little plus appears under neath the red target marker in the dialog box, however, this does not seem to work with public transport routing
No idea about the other ones. Personally, I'm slightly miffed about the fact at some point the keywords "home" and "work" stopped working, or that Gmaps sometimes accepts English words in the search query (as in 'X to Y'), but sometimes only German words ('X nach Y'), despite my OS and browser language set to English.
* Remember which city I'm in and index search results FIRST against my historical results and SECOND against local results and LASTLY against the world database at large. It's very frustrating re-opening google maps app, tying in something I queried for 10 minutes before and it starts auto-completing to somewhere across an ocean or two.
Scroll wheel should zoom in instantly (go to maps.bing.com for how to do this a little better, though to be fair to everyone Bing did take a step towards Google in the last ~month with their maps update and it is much slower. It used to be open as soon as you hit enter in the address bar)
Generally the maps could label streets more frequently. Far too often I'm confused about what street I'm looking at because the label is somewhere off screen.
b. On Android, add a menu option to download maps - "OK MAPS" is not obvious, easy to remember or in any way sensible in the slightest.
c. Make 3D mode work smoothly on an Android tablet. I have the LTE version of the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 edition and it is jerky, stuttery and slow in 3D mode. Compared to Apple maps on the base model iPad3 next to it, it is poor indeed.
Even worse: It loads so slowly (compared to here.com or bing.com or openstreetmap.org) that sometimes it takes several minutes to load an area while competitors load instantly.
And then there are cities where Google tried to add the new 3D buildings, but the result is so horrible that the satellite view is not usable anymore, for example Vienna [2]
[1]: Compare https://goo.gl/maps/e4awg https://www.here.com/?map=54.35326,10.0714,17,satellite [2]: https://goo.gl/maps/LUHiN
1. Someone (or a group of people) within mistakenly believes this design aesthetic[1] is good and have gained a lot of political power. I guess they like things that look pretty in screenshots instead of things that are actually useful or intuitive?
2. They're heavily optimizing for some metric (engagement, user growth, whatever) that is orthogonal to (or has a small component along) the usability vector.
[1] Simplistic defaults, not easily configurable, flat, tons of whitespace, etc...
So, just to give a counter point.
More generally the entire move from words to pictograms looks to me like a regression to a technology that was superseded by a superior one 5000 years ago.
Now, I just rely on Firefox’ autocompletion of the URL bar, or I just use Thunderbird instead of GMail, or here.com maps instead of Google maps.
I expect it to be in the drop down on the left, since Gmail and Google Calendar are otherwise so well integrate, but nope, it is hidden in the little square.
The first couple times I had to actually Google how to access my calendar from within Gmail (I can always go to calendar.google.com of course)
Even today, years afterwards, I was on the phone checking my calendar and I totally lost the train of the conversation as I was hunting in that dumbass thing for the calendar.
The worst part is that, yes, the top was getting stuffed, but instead of letting you choose what you wanted in your menu, they added that navigation monstrosity instead.
And can't you customize that menu? Just make it work for you.
Now I just don't go to YouTube when something on Gmail piques my interest.
That one click was a huge amount of effort for casual browsing, and forces a re-evaluation of idle browsing between properties.
I disabled priority inbox on browser and mobile devices and it's very usable again, so thanks to whoever kept that as an option.
I understand the "let's not confuse the user" approach but simplifying everything down to have zero features reduces the computer to a useless tool, as all the features have gone. It's like a Swiss army knife where they decided that all the blades and options were too fiddly and confusing so they just give you a spork instead.
... don't know what else to say. I question if their designers use their own products.
Latest bugs worth mentioning: Chrome still has an issue that can cause microphone to not work in Hangouts. Gmail.com has added a "Your plug-in google talk will no longer be supported soon" ...