I can't tell whether you're getting serious, but I'm pretty sure most users would not prefer your change. It's so dense it's hard to read, and in a repetitive way.

I would 100% prefer the change. That's how most of the paper maps I used at the time used to be, and it was wonderful, because they were more useful tools.

IMHO it could be useful if the repetition was greyed out. It would allow you to either read it directly (if your eyesight allows), or quickly trace the line to the text in black and read the name while being able to easily see what direction the street goes

Humans are fantastic at ignoring noise and concentrating on whatever we want to focus on. While you're reading this very comment do you have any idea how much noise is in your field of vision that you're ignoring? Not just on this screen at the same time (literally megabytes of other bitmaps besides my words) but the rest of your field of vision. Really look around. This message contains 575 bytes of text embedded in gigabytes of moving video you're ignoring. (Just one example.)

But if the information isn't there, no amount being human can bring it out. You're stuck.

Yes yes, I agree but it's also tiring and distracting at the same time.

(Yes, totally serious.)

For me, it's not hard to read. I'd prefer it, anyway.

Still, if you wouldn't prefer it then we can see what the Google engineer meant, as this is exactly what you get if you show as much information as possible!

There are so many other ways to present what you are presenting that writing the idea off seems silly. With some tweaking I think that idea could work -- if the text were in a faint gray, for example, so that it wasn't so contrasting. Probably want to do away with the bright red dots, too. Subtlety...

Readers here seriously misinterpreted what I was doing.

I absolutely 100% didn't write off the idea of putting more labels. I wasn't making a point about how bad it would be. I was doing something different.

I read a comment, this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18359646 - which I replied to. First I'll quote it in full then we'll break it down.

>It's obviously an intentional choice to avoid too much screen clutter...

>but I agree it's infuriating. I've spoken in the past with some people who work on Maps products and have heard "people say they want it but then they really don't..." and I honestly can't imagine what UX studies are telling them that.

>All the time I see a destination and I'm trying to figure out what closest cross street I should stop at and by the time I've zoomed and panned enough to find whatever random faraway place manages to have a label (feels like an unwanted game of whack-a-mole, where will the label pop up??), I can't tell if I've zoomed over to a parallel street instead.

>And the solution is so simple too: whenever you zoom in enough that there's enough room on a visible street to put a label, then put the label! I mean if I zoom in so far that only the one street is visible and there's no other text on it, but Maps still leaves it blank... it just feels inexcusable.

So let's break it down. First of all this person says that the REASON for this is to "AVOID CLUTTER". They then "I honestly can't imagine what UX studies are telling them that." So I did one! You're looking at a UX study that might tell them that.

We actually have a null hypothesis:

>I've spoken in the past with some people who work on Maps products and have heard "people say they want it but then they really don't..."

We have something to test. What we have to test is whether it's true that people REALLY DON'T want that.

We have a problem that we're UX testing. The problem is "I see a destination and I'm trying to figure out what closest cross street I should stop at and by the time I've zoomed and panned enough to find whatever random faraway place manages to have a label (feels like an unwanted game of whack-a-mole, where will the label pop up??), I can't tell if I've zoomed over to a parallel street instead." This is a clear problem that we can easily and specifically test.

And here is EXACTLY what we are testing:

>"And the solution is so simple too: whenever you zoom in enough that there's enough room on a visible street to put a label, then put the label!"

That says that the solution is SO SIMPLE. We are looking at the simplest possible solution. One that requires (ALMOST) NO ALGORITHMIC CHOICE ABOUT WHEN AND WHERE TO DISPLAY A STREET NAME!! This is given very simply and super-specifically: "WHENEVER THERE IS ROOM TO PUT A LABEL THEN PUT THE LABEL". This is what we're testing.

It wasn't my idea to keep it in black (instead of grey). It's there in black and white: "THE SOLUTION IS SO SIMPLE." And then it's a FULLY SPECIFIED SOLUTION.

So we have this:

* I can't imagine what UX study could POSSIBLY have had the result that people don't REALLY want it!

* All you need to do is this: WHENEVER there is room to put a label, put a label!

It doesn't say "On at least one point point on the road". It doesn't say somewhere. It says whenever. We're testing this.

The results of MY test is that for ME, I don't see that I don't REALLY want even this version of the UX. I think it's 100% readable and not too cluttered for me. I would turn on this form of navigation. It's extremely easy for me to read. It's an improvement. (Over these examples given just now by someone else: https://imgur.com/a/hCo3V2X )

So the WORST POSSIBLE way to test this UX still doesn't show us the result that I wanted, that people "DON'T REALLY WANT IT". However, it does show a bad way to test this UX change. So if you couldn't imagine a UX study that had this result before, well, now you can imagine it.

The option of putting the street name in very light grey and to make the red dots less intrusive is pretty "obvious". But it's not necessary for testing what I quoted.

I didn't test something DIFFERENT from what was quoted. I tested the worst possible clutter effect of interpreting the words "WHENEVER THERE IS ROOM TO PUT A LABEL, THEN PUT THE LABEL."

I didn't find the effect that was claimed. It seems fine to me, and seems like a UX improvement. Anyway, even if you all viscerally react very negatively to the mockup, at least now you can "imagine what UX study" might have told people that.

You actually have a great idea there. I wonder if they truly tested the "null hypothesis" like you bring up.

There could even be an invented special "road" font that helps people further disambiguate it visually from all the other map labels.

Thanks. It wasn't my idea. I literally tested the spec "whenever you zoom in enough that there's enough room on a visible street to put a label, then put the label!"

I guess the person meant "on one spot" but since labels are frequently repeated I didn't see the harm of trying it out in the "worst" way possible. Still looks fantastic.

Maybe it was misspecified but I did what it says and I think it's great. A light grey might help but then again it could be easier to ignore black you don't need than make out light grey you do.

What UX study did you do? All I saw was a mockup. Maybe I misunderstood.

>What UX study did you do?

I looked at the mockup and imagined it on my screen as I navigated, imagining this from a few different points, and imagining further pinching to zoom and scrolling around. I thought it was great. Especially if I imagined zooming in further to deal with an exact corner I was going to.

I didn't get the result I expected, that it would look awful. It looks great, fantastic, tremendous, amazing, wonderful, superb, terrific, awesome, excellent, magnificent. I literally have to open a thesaurus to express how great it is, I ran out of words partway through.

How it doesn't look is "something I really don't want", which is what I was promised.

That's not a UX study. That's a UX anecdote.

I'm confused, are you only talking about apple maps? I just checked on Google maps and I can easily see all the street names on my screen, as long as I zoom in far enough that there is enough space.

I was specifically exploring this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18359646

I wanted to see how it would look if "whenever you zoom in enough that there's enough room on a visible street to put a label, then put the label!"

I think my render looks absolutely fine. I don't see why I wouldn't always use it if I had a toggle switch. Yes it's cluttered if you just glance at it, but we don't use maps as pieces of minimalist art.

I think you're misunderstanding the OP's complaint. It's not that streets aren't repeatedly labelled. In fact your before had multiple labels. It's that sometimes google maps chooses not to label things at all until you zoom in more. Or sometimes out, strangely.

Here an example to illustrate jldugger's point:

https://imgur.com/a/hCo3V2X

You struggle to locate the names of the streets--in their absence, Google Maps shoves a bunch of unsolicited retail venues in your face.

> You struggle to locate the names of the streets--in their absence, Google Maps shoves a bunch of unsolicited retail venues in your face.

Remember, Google's an ad company; think of it from their perspective.

Google wants to push users towards businesses that advertise with them, so that business continue giving Google money and data.

Users are used to working around crap software, so they're unlikely to stop using Google Maps enough to harm Google's business.

So why would Google do anything to improve Google Maps for users if it even slightly harms their core advertising business? Their goal isn't to make the best map; it's to make money (by running a map service).

>Here an example to illustrate jldugger's point:

>https://imgur.com/a/hCo3V2X

Do you think those example would be too cluttered if the street names continously repeated their own name the way I showed: https://imgur.com/a/xQiF6pm

(Perhaps in light grey, perhaps spaced slightly more apart.)

?

Funny thing is, as far as I can tell, logicallee is not misunderstanding OP's complaint, he is subscribing to it and substantiating it.

Some people, among them apparently map makers, argue that "users don't want too many labels". logicallee is arguing that it's virtually impossible to put too many labels (by putting in as many labels as possible and showing that it's perfectly legible, and totally fine functionally, even if it's not the most aesthetic experience).

FWIW, I subscribe to OP, that it's infuriating not to have streets labeled, and find logicallee's point rather convincing, that having more labels doesn't really distract from the functionality of the map (and I don't care that it affects the map's "beauty").

I dislike it because it slows my consumption of the map; annoying while walking, possibly dangerous while driving. We're all accustomed to reading lines of text in their entirety, which results in endless repetition here. Training the eye to look only between one set of red dots may be possible, but I doubt it would ever be as effortless as reading a discrete word with whitespace around it. I do agree every road should be labeled when there's space - perhaps even at regular intervals when there's space, but making the labeling continuous is counterproductive.

Apart from being easy to consume, the map tiles must also be in sync with the company's brand and design ethos. Its hard to imagine Apple's minimalist aesthetic delivering these tiles.

What I think would be ideal is that for a visible stretch of road in the middle of it there should be the street name. Sometimes it's there and sometimes it not and I haven't found any logical reason why it appears and goes (in my to be fair limited use).

At company I worked for (czech search engine Seznam.cz), the map team made an awesome 1st April easter egg when they took this to the eleven: https://mapy.cz/textova?x=15.5603819&y=49.5896653&z=13

(it just says 'roadroadroad', 'houseshouseshouses', 'riverriverriver' ... :))

I know you know it says roarroadroad but to me it looks foreign. When I zoom in I see this as great:

https://imgur.com/a/g8q4WhB

And if Kopec in the lower center were the name of a street, I think it's great that it's written there.

The only thing missing is the red dots, so instead of roadroadroadroad it said road·road·road·road (by the way you might wonder why I made the dots red in my example: it's so the eye can just focus on the red dots to sparsely get the road's path.)

I just don't see the issue at all. It's way better, at that zoom level, to have to use my human ability to notice and ignore patterns and ignore noise while concentrating on what I want, than to use two fingers to try to zoom in enough for the map to place the names. I just don't see the issue with the view you presented. It looks great!

Oh that's awesome.

For non-slavic speakers, I especially like how it stops at the border, so you can get half a screen of normal map and half a screen of strange words.

you choose the easiest case, large city blocks in a grid. Try a European or Asian city with lots of twisty roads and alleys and it gets much harder. The maps here are already covered with the names of buildings, stations, parks, hospitals etc...

I often want road names in Tokyo but they are also competing for space of transit lines as well as places with double or triple decker differently named things like there's a freeway named A over aroad named B which is over a Subway line named C

Road names are usually not as important in Japan as they are not used in addresses but they come in handy when explaining to a cab driver how to get somewhere

> Try a European or Asian city with lots of twisty roads and alleys and it gets much harder.

I showed what would happen if you literally follow the rule "whenever [...] there's enough room on a visible street to put a label, then put the label".

That's the specification. If you show me a twisty road with no room for a label, then according to this specification it doesn't get the label. The specification (for what we're testing) says "whenever there is room". Whenever there is enough whitespace on the road.

That’s a misunderstanding of the spec. The ask is to put in at least one label if there is space (when previously there were none). Filling all available space with redundant labels is not the ask.

OK, mine is the result of running this pseudocode:

   # Label all streets as much as possible
   for (each street on screen):
     while (that street has room for a label): # (even if already labeled)
       put a label on that street              # i.e. an additional one

yours is:

   # Try to label unlabeled streets
   for (each street on screen)
     if (no label on screen for that street): # if unlabeled
       if (street has room for a label):      # ...can we fix?
         put a label on that street           # ...then fix

(I would usually write this with an && rather than nested if's but I know mobile makes you scroll sideways)

As a followup, could you please define "street has room for a label"? When do you consider that a street has room for a label?

I've had to scroll the length of streets all they way across the entire city before it showed me a street name.

(Too late to edit, but I just noticed that imgur makes my pictures look like garbage on mobile. You may have to request the desktop view briefly to see what I saw when making the comment on desktop.)