Google Maps Gets a New Look | Hacker News Reader

Google Maps Gets a New Look

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114 pointschippy114 comments

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.

Not OP but I wish you could at least easily tap a street to see its name, or quickly toggle to show all street names even if it makes the map ugly.

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.

I think the solution is simply to show the street name when the zoom is at certain level. In that case, there is no clutter.

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 whole point of a map is to show as much information as possible, with as much density as possible, so you can get all that info.

Nope, the point of a map is to display the information you want to know, which is a subset of all information.

A map should show you the information you need, and hopefully look nice while doing so.

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.

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.

Or if they do have signs, they are positioned up high, easy to see from a car but very hard to see as a pedestrian.

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.

I think Los Angeles is the only city I've seen that actually manages this pretty well. Major streets have signs hanging in the middle of the street, large signs and reliably placed. https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/Burton+Way+%26+S+Doheny...

Smaller streets have smaller signs, but also fairly reliably placed https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/Burton+Way+%26+S+Doheny...

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

I'll take that over missing labels any day.

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.

that's google fitness built into google maps

Boston :(

I know it's not perfect, but I have found that dropping a pin on a street with no name shown, is a pretty easy way to find out what it's called.

Clever! I will have to try that.

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.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ColorBlind/comments/7d8gc0/new_goog...

Would be nice to see the referenced picture adjusted for various levels of color blindness.

Here's one. https://imgur.com/a/Z5jwl

Is that a joke? The two are indistinguishable to me.

No, they're quite different. Use a color picker for proof.

Wait, the two images side by side are the same to you? They are very different.

You might want to get your color vision checked!

Good simulation, I guess...

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.

Google has the resources to deploy a second visual style.

They are rendering on the client anyway, so it is some combination of not giving a shit and an obsession with not having options.

Should be able to do better than setting 5 of 8 of the colors to be some shade of blue though.

This member of the color-visible community isn't impressed with the new set of colors either. Of the 8 colors, 5 of them are some shade of blue.

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.

The current (L) Android one has it. Go to the side hamburger menu and choose "Start Driving".

Second this, it's been here for a long time already. And I have an "old" moto g3.

Yeah, it's been there for about two years.

It's actually been around even longer, just even more inaccessible. :-) See this video from 2009: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni4FU8D1-DU and http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2010/10/car-home-for-androi...

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.

Interesting. iOS definitely doesn't have it, unless it's hidden beyond the first menu.

There's also an option in settings to add a shortcut to it on the homescreen so you don't have to navigate the menu.

Yup, also Android Auto map defaults to driving as well (obviously :) ).

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.

Howwww do I get speed limits on Google Maps while driving? I really want this. Sometimes I just start Waze, just because of this.

As of July 2017, by moving to the Bay Area or Rio de Janeiro: http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/07/08/google-confirms-spee...

They've had this for nearly 2 years: https://blog.google/products/maps/do-i-stay-or-do-i-go-now-g...

Yep, this was mentioned already. I guess my issue is it's not a feature on iOS. So it'd be handy if this were included in the "new look" update.

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.

https://www.justinobeirne.com/a-year-of-google-maps-and-appl...

Curious is the representation of a lot of religions but not a cross present?

https://imgur.com/a/kJzG4

Yep. Very telling.

I saw that. Quite odd. Do they not have the data to be able to say definitively, "This is a Christian house of worship"? Seems unlikely?

To me more telling was the swastika is there but not a cross.

Ugh, just hope it doesn't spark another "war against christianity" thing

It will probably will. It's too bad too because this is one of those things that's easy to rectify.

So if they don't rectify it, it's because there's intent.

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.

It just seems so calculated too. I mean use a fish or something if you're afraid of a connotation.

I'm surprised more ignorant folks aren't outraged at Buddhist temples being a "hate symbol"

That symbol's history far predates its quite recent re-definition as a hate symbol in the western world.

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.

Yes. That's exactly your comment parent's point.

I wonder if it's going to show up in google maps in Germany.

Not to mention that the symbol used looks a lot like a mosque. Domed roof with "towers" on either side.

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.

So in, for example, Muslim-majority countries, the few Christian churches will appear as generic place of worship.

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).

For the love of god, PLEASE include a scale. It's not a map if it doesn't have a scale (and not just when zooming).

Looks nice otherwise!

Go to Settings and change "Show scale on map" to Always.

You're my hero!

I struggle to read the names of streets and roads once the route with the blue dots overlays them. I hope this change makes those readable.

I disagree. Once I am routing somewhere, I only want to see major things that I want to focus on. Like the next exit/turn.

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.

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.

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.

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'.

While in Paris, I noticed that Google Maps translates metro stop names. At one point it was suggesting I take a train from Vincennes Castle to Town Hall. Given that these names are not what are shown on station signs, metro maps, stop indicators, or anything else, this is entirely unhelpful, and is a frankly bizarre feature to have added.

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.

I had the same issue. Tried zooming in and tapping the images to see a larger view, but there was no way to see things clearly.

I am riding motobike in mountains in Thailand. Right now like every year in winter. When I stop to check the road I am blinded by the sun, I take off my raybans, my iPhone screen brightness is at full and in Google Maps the country road are thin white on bright yellow. Impossible to see anything.

Why don’t they offer alternative color pallete?

I also hate that you cannot lock the screen orientation and it turns accidentally like living snake. And when I am looking at something on the other side of the world and suddenly the map jumps right back to my current location. Again no option to switch off these annoying features.

I wonder if they ever field test Maps or are they making those dumb user interface decisions in nice, dark, AC meeting rooms in an office in California?

There's a variety of apps that use OpenStreetMap data that you could take a look at. They tend to have more options than mainstream apps.

I think on i-devices Maps.Me is the most popular, but there are others, some aimed at niche uses.

I guess the first thing would be to check how OpenStreetMap does in the areas you need a map. In many areas it is less complete than Google, but there are also areas where Google doesn't care and there are people actively working on OSM.

Thank you but in foreign country Google Maps with their rich content, recommendations etc. is indispensable. My point was rather that I would expect more then armchair design from them.

I wonder which features were eliminated in this round of redesign. That seems to be the theme lately.

Came here to post this. Every new overhaul of every product for the past two years seems to have removed useful features.

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'd love to be able to make a phone call to the destination when I'm inside navigation mode. That'd be really handy.

only when walking right?

No, when I judge that it's safe and appropriate to do so.

The latest changes are a bit crufty on normal screen sizes. Vertical panning on a bottom menu is meh.

I think Google should change the Swastika that represents Buddhist Temples to face right instead of left. Its a small change that would go a long way.

They are both correct, but the right facing one is more politically correct, and arguably more correct generally.

I think you have that backwards. It's correct the way they have it now. The Nazis showed it the other way.

Pretty please add support for Apple Carplay!

Did Apple ever make the CarPlay API public? If not, Google is very unlikely to gain access.

Yes:

https://developer.apple.com/carplay/

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sirikit/carplay

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.

When will it come to Car Play?

All that Japan love!

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