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Comment by r1nkgrl | Hacker News Reader

The color design of their iOS application is also terrible.

So many elements in the navigation UX are a similar color.

The worst is the Current route (light blue) and alternate routes (grey). Both of these colors are fairly similar and have very little contrast compared to the background. I have a hard time picking out the difference between a road (grey) and an alternate route (grey, slightly thicker line).

At night, when it switches to a dark color scheme, everything is a shade of dark blueish grey, with very little contrast.

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The colors drive me crazy when looking at forest service roads in the mountains. National Forest land is some shade of green, and the tiny roads are light gray and there is virtually no contrast between the two. So if I want to be able to see the roads, I have to zoom in a lot, and then I can only see a radius of half a mile, so I have to scroll the map constantly to see where a road goes. Absolutely maddening. Presumably some designer is really pleased with how elegant and subtle these colors look, but without contrast it's useless.

It's not just tiny roads that are swallowed by green with the latest updates. I couldn't find my favorite state highway while trying to show it to a friend recently until I zoomed in so far as to lose all context of its route and surroundings.

That low contrast stuff is what bugs me. I often go out into rural areas. Try making out where the (white) minor roads are against the (almost white) background. Now, try that in bright sunlight!

A good mapping app would have different modes for this. Garmin GPS's are much more readable, which is one reason I recently bought one, even though GM in theory is better. GM is better at routing, but it is really hard to see the detail, which is dangerous if you are driving.

Try Waze [1]. Even though they are owned by Google, I find their maps much more readable for driving.

1. https://www.waze.com/en-GB/

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