I hope it actually starts showing street names when zooming in. When using Google Maps for pedestrian navigation, having street names show up rather arbitrarily can be a huge problem, I've had times when I was unable to find out what street I was on due to visual design overriding usability concerns.
This is most applicable in cities that don't feel the need to place street signs all that often, which is another issue altogether!
All electronic maps use heuristics to show street names because otherwise the map would be too visually cluttered. They tend to show the major streets and a few non major ones and change based on zoom level.
I mean for you use case they should perhaps have a subtitle which is “currently on street X” but I definitely don’t want my maps cluttered with overfitting this concern and jam packing it.
Which would mean adding yet another toggle for showing all street names, or adding touch points on every street for showing the name. All of that would easily overload the user interface.
I'd guess that the team probably took all of that in consideration, and the "I need to know every street name" use case was too rare to justify cluttering the small screen with names.
The problem is, sometimes not even zooming in enough that only one street fills the screen, its name will be displayed. Of course no one's asking for all street names to be displayed while zoomed out.
I've worked on more than my share of mapping systems in my life (disclaimer: I have not worked on Google Maps). The behavior you describe could very well be explained as follows: Many map data sets store, along with the geometry for the roads and points of interest, pre-baked positions at which the street names may be rendered. The map will never render a street name (or highway number) in a place other than where these candidate points are. In order to de-clutter, the mapping system simply selectively turns on or off these labels--it is not smart enough to move them around. So what you are likely seeing is: You zoomed into a stretch of road where no pre-baked candidate positions for the street name exist.
The best compromise would be to add a slider somewhere to let the user determine what's "too cluttered." But the trend is toward taking as many decisions as possible out of the user's hands, and I'd be amazed if future Maps updates move the product in any other direction.
My ideal interface decision would be actual switch (like between regular and topographical maps) that would turn off all the commercial shit and turn the map to a map, with building numbers and street names.
> All electronic maps use heuristics to show street names because otherwise the map would be too visually cluttered. They tend to show the major streets and a few non major ones and change based on zoom level.
There are situations (not that uncommon in my experience) where you can zoom in all the way and Google maps will not show some street names.
It gets really infuriating, I am using a map, I want to know where I am at! That is one of the primary value props of having a map. I get that a lot of people can't even read maps now days, and that turn by turn directions are the norm, but in cities where people actually walk, being able to look at a map is very useful.
I've had times where I'd ask friends where they are at, and they could NOT get Google maps to tell them! Instead they had to resort to giving me a nearby store, and I'd use Google maps to navigate to that store. A serious design fail in grid based cities, where if I just knew they were on 73rd st and 142nd ave, I could just walk a few blocks over and find them instantly.
Once I see the route on Google maps I can close it down and just walk there, but I shouldn't have to cajole my maps app into being a map.
Or the other annoying case: street name will be shown (underneath route information if you're going somewhere) at one level, but then disappears when you zoom in further to make it actually readable.
This is really annoying and occasionally dangerous (if you're in an situation where you don't to look lost or have your phone out longer than you need to).
The other thing I find really annoying is that you can't touch landmarks for more information while in navigation mode. A lot of times I'm on a long walk and want to know if it's worth detouring for a business that's a few blocks off the route, and the only way I've found to do so is exiting navigation mode, clicking, then re-entering my destination.
Oh my god I went into the comments section to post exactly this! It makes me curious how they determine when to show a street name. Honestly, all I want is at all times the center of my screen should show its street name. That's it. Sometimes I find myself zooming in and out of the very center of my screen and it refuses to show the street. Instead it shows the names of nearby streets I don't care about. Sometimes I'm on the damn street and I just want to know what street I'm currently on. It really does feel arbitrary.
This happens in the real world frustratingly often too. Many cities will have huge streets that intersect each other, and at that intersection, there will be no signs. No street signs at all to tell you what intersection you're at, despite being at perhaps the largest and most used intersection in the city. It's infuriating.
It's especially awful when people try to give directions based on crossroads and stuff. "Drive on Main until you get to water street then turn." then water street isn't marked. or "It's at the crossroads of 46th and main" then 46th isn't marked so you have to find 43rd and count three streets forward. You'd think that would be one of their base duties.
Hudson county, NJ takes that a step further (especially in the West New York/Guttenberg area): E/W streets are numbered, crossed by a dozen or so named N/S Avenues/Boulevards. OK so far. But in some areas there aren't any street signs for those names, just "local" street names (which, by the way, usually aren't visible on maps) in both directions.
This is my bane. Or they only have them facing the directions cars come from so that there's a 50% chance you can see one as a pedestrian without going well out of your way.
King County in Washington State is pretty good about having street signs on corners. I'd say 95% of the time they are findable, the size is a bit small, but overall they are quite usable and the names are printed on both parts of the sign and, baring trees, visible from all four corners, finding the cross street if you are a pedestrian walking down on the same side of the sidewalk as the sign is the worst case.
I've seen the signage fall apart at the more complicated intersections though. But then again, labeling 3 left turns probably isn't an easy task to be charged with, as a driver I am not always sure what sort of signage I'd want in those situations. (I swear I've seen some intersections where they just gave up though)
It doesn't even seem to prefer labeling streets that are on a route given to you when searching directions. This also baffles me, they seem to prefer visual balance and aesthetics over usability.
I agree that online zoomable maps often have trouble with labeling, but my problem is just as often with too many labels: https://i.imgur.com/Z4FFdzS.png
Hard to believe we can write programs to defeat 9-dan Go professionals but not to avoid printing "Northlake Way Northlake Way Northlake Way Northlake Way Northlake Way Northlake Way Northlake Way" on a map.
I understand that maps are hard. But they are also important.
When I first lived in Chicago, this was _awful_. Even with Chicago's grid system, Google maps would only show like every 3rd street or something--even when zoomed in as much as possible. Not knowing the city, I'd frequently go the exact _opposite_ way intended because I'd incorrectly remember "oh wells st is between these two..." when in fact it was between the two streets on the opposite side I was headed. I'm pretty decent with directions in general, but this often led to many extra miles being walked.
My requirement doesn't take away from your needs in any way because my problem is with the color choices, contrast, etc. A good choice of colors, contrast and font sizes can provide for both needs (which it certainly hasn't all this while).
When I go around, I usually don't keep the phone on hand or use any navigational aids (for various reasons, including not letting Google know where I am at what times and dates). There are times when I want to map out a walking route or a driving route and just need to memorize some of the street/road names to know how I'm headed. That also helps me later so that I'm not always dependent on a map that's not in my head. There are also many turns around the world's streets where there are no distinguishing landmarks as such. For people who follow the navigation aid all the time, these things don't matter.
Any chance Google Maps for iOS/Android will include a "driving mode" like regular GPS devices have?
What I mean by that is a mode for when you don't have an obvious destination entered into the app, but it should still show the street you're driving on, the speedlimit (if enabled) for that street, upcoming cross streets, and maybe possible places of interest?
I'd love to have this since sometimes I don't necessarily have a destination set but want to see on a map where I am.
It's the View Maps option. It was only enabled in Car (dock) mode and it went away along with several other features at the time of the GMM 5.0 (vector/3D) rewrite, unless you had an internal build.
Google bought Waze a while back. That seems to be its main use case. It can also warn you about roadblocks and traffic "ahead" even if you don't have a destination set.
Fair enough. I just wish it was directly integrated with Google Maps. But that's definitely a good point; I rarely open up Waze when it does indeed have that as its primary feature.
Is it just me, or does the new version look closer to Apple Maps? For example, the color coded icons for different places is something Apple Maps has had for awhile.
I'm not saying this is a bad thing -- obviously Apple Maps would never have existed without taking a lot of ideas from Google Maps. I'm just surprised that it's going the other way too now (which is a win for users).
Is it just me or are the changes really only miniscule, compared to other stuff the just added via updates over the last year? I don't really see how this warrants a blog post with such an important sounding title.
Localization of the iconography is pretty neat -- the Entertainment / Leisure category has a castle for "Historic" but a gateway-templey thing for the "Historic (China)". A whole bunch of Japan-specific ones too. The Buddhist temple is a swastica, but the thousand-year-old unity-of-life kind, not the rotated-45-degrees hitler kind.
There was an excellent article on how the designs of Google Maps has dramatically changed from 2016 to 2017. Screenshots were gathered every month, and the trend across months was pretty telling of a shifting emphasis from roads to places. The same was done for Apple Maps, which, for the most part, hadn't changed.
The colorblind community is not impressed with the new set of colors. They appear to be coupling the colors with reasonably clear symbols, so it might not be too bad. Still, if you're trying to communicate data through color, you can't use that many of them and they really shouldn't be pastel.
There's only so much you can do, though. With eight colors, you're already into difficult territory (as far as distinguishability goes) and color cues need to be supplemented by other visual elements.
IM on mobile and can’t for the world of me see the images on that blog in a reasonable size. They ought to hire a web design consultant to help them out.
They would really benefit by reading "Visualization Analysis & Design" by Munzer. If they had they would not have picked that set of colors :-). But poor color choices aside there is a lot to be said for 'modes'.
Looks like that's limited to a few categories; as far as I can tell through that document, only "automaker" apps can even build custom UI, and Google's not an automaker.
It almost looks like they've gotten rid of that annoying rotate feature, where you get out of having up be north, the way it's supposed to be, when it misinterprets your pinching zoom-in gestures.
I wish we could change how often it talks to you. Seriously sometimes it speaks to me 7 times for the same upcoming turn. Ends up being like 15 -20 seconds of straight talking.
If I could turn down verbosity to once every direction change I'd be very happy.
Not sure. Just saying it's easy to add a cross and be truly and not leave the question of bias out there. This is becoming a mountain out of a molehill thing though. I just don't want Google villified by you know whos.
I'm a Christian and I feel this is a cheap shot. I believe this to be malicious, especially coming from Google. Could even be some kind of inside joke.
I'm a Christian and I just feel this came from a team that didn't have much in the way of a Christian on their team. That said we as Christians aren't faring well at being represented at all at most tech companies. Even moreso I bet at google but that's just me assuming. I fear the worst but assume the best of google about this. It's really a small detail.
This can be interpreted in a different way: the default house of worship in the US is Christian, and so only the counterexamples need their own symbols.
at some point, the maps UX team explained how it's not right to show a church with a cross on top for all places of worship. Thus it was removed. IIRC some time later, icons for more religions were added, but the default stayed as it is. Assuming https://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/06/the_odd_body_religi... is still valid, Christianity has as many "members" as two next biggest religions combined, so it's funny/sad it doesn't get the symbol.
> The swastika is an ancient religious icon used in the Indian subcontinent, East Asia and Southeast Asia, where it has been and remains a sacred symbol of spiritual principles in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. In the Western world, it was historically a symbol of auspiciousness and good luck,[5] but in the 1930s, it became the main feature of Nazi symbolism as an emblem of Aryan race identity, and as a result, it has become stigmatized in the West by association with ideas of racism, hatred, and mass murder.
> Some of the earliest archaeological evidence of the swastika in the Indian subcontinent can be dated to 3,000 BCE.
3000 BCE by far predates the last ~85-90 years of its redefinition.
The reason you're seeing such a variation is because the icons are based on per-country map conventions. They have different icons for use in different areas, for example there are some specifically for Japan. Christianity is covered in the generic "Church or temple" icon, but people in other countries with other major religions wouldn't recognize that iconography. The point is probably to be open to other religions in the West, while also considering the breadth in other countries.
They hate Christianity so much they used a building for the icon unlike every other religion represented. They're so triggered they couldn't stand to use the cross.
Maybe they should just remove all the religious symbols. In most places in the US you'd see a whole lot of crosses otherwise (lots of churches everywhere).
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[ 6.9 ms ] story [ 291 ms ] threadLooks nice otherwise!
This is most applicable in cities that don't feel the need to place street signs all that often, which is another issue altogether!
I mean for you use case they should perhaps have a subtitle which is “currently on street X” but I definitely don’t want my maps cluttered with overfitting this concern and jam packing it.
I'd guess that the team probably took all of that in consideration, and the "I need to know every street name" use case was too rare to justify cluttering the small screen with names.
I strongly disagree with your position, which seems to be that a map should look nice, and hopefully show you the information you need while doing so.
There are situations (not that uncommon in my experience) where you can zoom in all the way and Google maps will not show some street names.
It gets really infuriating, I am using a map, I want to know where I am at! That is one of the primary value props of having a map. I get that a lot of people can't even read maps now days, and that turn by turn directions are the norm, but in cities where people actually walk, being able to look at a map is very useful.
I've had times where I'd ask friends where they are at, and they could NOT get Google maps to tell them! Instead they had to resort to giving me a nearby store, and I'd use Google maps to navigate to that store. A serious design fail in grid based cities, where if I just knew they were on 73rd st and 142nd ave, I could just walk a few blocks over and find them instantly.
Once I see the route on Google maps I can close it down and just walk there, but I shouldn't have to cajole my maps app into being a map.
The other thing I find really annoying is that you can't touch landmarks for more information while in navigation mode. A lot of times I'm on a long walk and want to know if it's worth detouring for a business that's a few blocks off the route, and the only way I've found to do so is exiting navigation mode, clicking, then re-entering my destination.
Smaller streets have smaller signs, but also fairly reliably placed https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/Burton+Way+%26+S+Doheny...
I've seen the signage fall apart at the more complicated intersections though. But then again, labeling 3 left turns probably isn't an easy task to be charged with, as a driver I am not always sure what sort of signage I'd want in those situations. (I swear I've seen some intersections where they just gave up though)
I understand that maps are hard. But they are also important.
When I go around, I usually don't keep the phone on hand or use any navigational aids (for various reasons, including not letting Google know where I am at what times and dates). There are times when I want to map out a walking route or a driving route and just need to memorize some of the street/road names to know how I'm headed. That also helps me later so that I'm not always dependent on a map that's not in my head. There are also many turns around the world's streets where there are no distinguishing landmarks as such. For people who follow the navigation aid all the time, these things don't matter.
What I mean by that is a mode for when you don't have an obvious destination entered into the app, but it should still show the street you're driving on, the speedlimit (if enabled) for that street, upcoming cross streets, and maybe possible places of interest?
I'd love to have this since sometimes I don't necessarily have a destination set but want to see on a map where I am.
It's the View Maps option. It was only enabled in Car (dock) mode and it went away along with several other features at the time of the GMM 5.0 (vector/3D) rewrite, unless you had an internal build.
I'm not saying this is a bad thing -- obviously Apple Maps would never have existed without taking a lot of ideas from Google Maps. I'm just surprised that it's going the other way too now (which is a win for users).
https://www.justinobeirne.com/a-year-of-google-maps-and-appl...
https://www.reddit.com/r/ColorBlind/comments/7d8gc0/new_goog...
They are rendering on the client anyway, so it is some combination of not giving a shit and an obsession with not having options.
https://developer.apple.com/carplay/
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sirikit/carplay
They are both correct, but the right facing one is more politically correct, and arguably more correct generally.
https://imgur.com/a/kJzG4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika (a wee bit of emphasis added below):
> The swastika is an ancient religious icon used in the Indian subcontinent, East Asia and Southeast Asia, where it has been and remains a sacred symbol of spiritual principles in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. In the Western world, it was historically a symbol of auspiciousness and good luck,[5] but in the 1930s, it became the main feature of Nazi symbolism as an emblem of Aryan race identity, and as a result, it has become stigmatized in the West by association with ideas of racism, hatred, and mass murder.
> Some of the earliest archaeological evidence of the swastika in the Indian subcontinent can be dated to 3,000 BCE.
3000 BCE by far predates the last ~85-90 years of its redefinition.
Occam's Razor suggests that, as usual, Google is not assigning their best and brightest to the Maps product.