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Comment by sonofaplum | Hacker News Reader

There are some good points here, but of course I am going to ignore those to talk instead about the stuff I disagree with!

The section about google maps follows a form of criticism that is widespread and particularly annoys me, namely => popular service 'x' doesn't exactly fit my power user need 'y', therefore x is hopelessly borked, poorly designed, and borderline useless.

There is always room for improvement, but all software requires tradeoffs. One of the things that makes a product like google maps so powerful is that it makes a lot of guesses about what you are actually trying to do in order to greatly reduce the complexity and inputs required in order to do these incredibly complicated tasks.

So yes, sometimes when you move the map some piece of data will be removed from the screen without your explicit consent, and yeah, in that moment that feels incredibly annoying. But balance that against the 100s or 1000s of times you used google maps and it just worked, perfectly, because it reduced the number of inputs needed to use it to the bare minimum.

Google maps doesn't need to fit every use case perfectly, and while its fine to talk through how your hyper specific use case could and should work, remember all the times that it seamlessly routed you around traffic from your office to your house in one touch while you were already hurtling down the highway at 70 mph.

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The example for maps is not a "hyper specific use case": "The process you WANT: pick your start and end. now start searching for places in between. Your start and end are saved. When you find someplace interesting, add it to your list. Keep doing that, keep searching and adding."

That's a common use case. The problem with Google maps (and the problem with a lot of modern software) is, as you say, it makes a lot of guesses.

The definition of a good user interface is "to meet the exact needs of the customer, without fuss or bother"*

Google Maps is great for finding directions to a very specific place. But after mapping those directions, doing almost anything else destroys that route. If I have to (and I do) open multiple map tabs, or repeatedly enter the same route info after making a search (if I'm on a phone) it is not a good UI.

*https://www.nngroup.com/articles/definition-user-experience/

Why do you think that use case is that common? And why do you think google maps should elevate that particular use case above other competing use cases?

How would not erasing information when you move the map compromise the current use case, though?

Because especially on mobile, screen space is insanely valuable, and if you want to show new information from the new area the map has been moved to you often need to remove "stale" information.

Sure, but it could just as easily be a button to clear this information explicitly or it could just be hidden, but not deleted.

it wouldn't, which is why the complaint in these tweets ("drag the map even a pixel? it erases all your results and closes the infobox you were looking at") is, in fact, not something that happens.

give it a go.

Gas station or McDonald's on the route to some far destination. I've done this in the android app and it works but it can be a little awkward.

Search for destinations along your route is (finally) a feature in the gmaps mobile app. It isn't in the web-app. Apparently Google agrees that it is a desirable feature. Why does the UI-limited, small screen experience surpass the rich desktop experience?

You can do it on the desktop app, via the add a stop feature. If you add a stop and then enter a search term ("coffee shops"), you'll see matching results along your route. (IIRC it doesn't show you the added travel time like the mobile app does, though. Maybe that's what you're referring to?)

Finally? I've been searching for things along my routes since at least the 2017 Eclipse as that's the first time I can remember using the feature on my trip from BC to Oregon.

I hadn't even thought of this specifically, but after it was mentioned in the initial post I realized just how much that is my use case most of the time and how often I am fighting with google maps to accomplish what are relatively simple tasks like adding an additional point along a route. If you are trying to add multiple additional points on a route it gets even worse.

This is all much worse on the Android app as well, where it makes the assumption that your use case is to get from where you are right now to somewhere else. Trying to get from point A to B, where neither is where you are now, is unnecessarily frustrating.

I just tested this and it works as follows;

- Open Maps

- Search destination. It autocompletes after about 5 characters

- Select destination

- Screen changes to infobox about the location. There is a prominent "Directions" button

- Press "Directions"

- It changes to a route view, the Start is autocompleted to Current Location but obviously editable

- Press into start location edit box

- I can type location or "Choose on map"

This process requires essentially the minimum possible information from me (I want directions, from A, to B). What is frustrating about it?

That is 9 or so manual steps and it doesn't become clear until step 7 or so that it can even be done! There's nothing intuitive about this and when someone knows how it works that must be because they've either learned it from someone or kept on experimenting with it until they figured it out.

compare this to the original that they "simplified" away:

- Open app in navigation mode (step 1)

- it shows two boxes, where you are going from and where you are going to

- fill said boxes. There is a button next to from to choose current destination. (step 2 and 3)

- click get directions (step 4)

Compared to the current "simple" version it is immediately clear and there are fewer steps and less things you need to know.

Obviously it's fewer steps if you combine some steps into 1 when paraphrasing.

The point is it was one step. There was a separate entry point or what should I call it from the main Android menu that took me straight to this.

You didn't break down your steps like the parent did. Here's your way:

1) Open app 2) Search for start 3) Select start 4) Search for destination 5) Select destination 6) Click directions

Here's the parent's way:

1) Open app 2) Search destination 3) Select destination 4) Select directions 5) Search for start 6) Select start

They're the same process.

No it was literally 4 actions (3 if you accepted the default starting point) and the the same amount of typing the current solution. I didn't summarize anything.

1. Open app in navigation mode (there was a separate icon for that)

2. Accept default start or type if you don't want the default.

3. Point at destination

4. Type destination and enter

Besides it was immediately obvious when I opened the app for the first time on my first smartphone, it just made sense and still does when I think about it.

Edit: I reread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21836204

I exaggerated wildly and can get it down to 5 steps. It is by definition discoverable since we have all discovered it, but I hold that it is still not obvious or self-explanatory in any way.

It's immediately obvious to me how to use it now. And if you accept the default start then both solutions are still the same.

Gmaps right now works like this:

1) Open App 2) Click search box 3) Either select a destination from the list that pops up or start typing and actually search. Once that's done the route pops up with your travel time. 4) Click start

If you want to change your start:

4) Select the starting location 5) Search or select from the list that pops up and your route and travel time are show. 6) Click start

It's not rocket science. It's all obvious from the UI.

On android I just (from london) typed "Washington DC to New York" and it instantly popped me up directions for the other side of the world, with two editable boxes.

That seems pretty decent UX wise?

That is such a narrow use case. Were you actually planning that trip I am sure you would find the UX lacking.

* What about stops along the way?

* What about saving the results for later?

* What if you want to do some other mapping task in the middle of all this?

* Are the directions given feasible?

> This is all much worse on the Android app as well, where it makes the assumption that your use case is to get from where you are right now to somewhere else.

That strikes me as a fantastic assumption. I wonder what percentage of routes involve the user’s current location? I bet it’s high!

Yep. But it used to be even better when it made that assumption clear by adding a pre-filled box with your current location.

It just worked for the default case but when you needed something else it was straightforward to do that.

Doesn't it? It gives me two boxes, "current location" and "destination" and I can change either.

Straight away after you open Google Maps on a mobile?

No, I open it, look for the destination, then press directions and can edit the starting point.

Then we agree. I find that utterly annoying since I've seen how simple it could be but it seems many people disagree with me :-)

I can't reply to eitland for some reason, but yes, I get both those boxes.

I open the app, click my destination, and then click "Directions". The very next thing is both of those boxes, with "current location" defaulting to the start location. I can then change that if I want.

It optimizes for my most common use case, but allows me to do it otherwise, too. I don't think I could design this better.

Because if you plan to travel far you often want to plan a stop along the way to eat, use the toilet and refill anf maybe rest a bit in some hopefully interesting place.

I have not conducted a survey, but they strike me as reasonably common desires.

On a 4-5 hour road trip, I want to take the kids to see a castle or something somewhere around 1/2 to 3/4 of the way. Even just wanting to have lunch somewhere other than Hilton Park or Newport Pagnell would be such a use case.

I have also wanted it for visiting someone - I'm going to their house, what is my most convenient option for buying some wine and/or flowers on the way?

I have wanted it when I've been away from home and have a big time gap between finishing my planned activities (or having to check out of my hotel) and my train or plane departure. What is the best way to spend a few hours that is anywhere on the route from here to the airport/station.

I think there is an anti-car bias in Google Maps and similar services.

Everything is oriented around the model of "reserve a hotel", "reserve a flight", like you really are on rails like a European.

Today's online maps aren't up to the freedom that motorists have to make small deviations from a route. For instance if I drive from here to Boston I am likely to stay at a hotel en-route, that could be anywhere from Albany to Worcester. I don't have strong feelings about where, but it might be nice to find a good deal or find a place that I think is cool.

Thus I am interested in searching along a tube around my route, not clicking on cities like Springfield and running a search at each one.

Google Maps shows search results annotated with how much time they add as a detour.

Wouldn't agree with regard to Apple Maps being "anti-car" when there isn't even a bike mode. Walking- and car-mode are unusable for cycling, with car-mode taking bad routes for cyclists and walking mode giving directions way too late, when a cyclist is already on/past the crossing.

> Everything is oriented around the model of "reserve a hotel", "reserve a flight"

Of course, that's where Google makes their money from the service. Google Maps isn't a public good, it's a line of business.

My "big time gap" example is explicitly a non-car use case.

The visiting example for me is normally a non-car use case. If going by car, I would probably pick these things up close to home and carry them all the way.

Google is in the directory business. Ultimately they don't want us to make the most informed decision, they want us to "feel lucky" and trust The Algorithm. Because the more we "feel lucky", the bigger the fear of businesses to get punished by The Algorithm for insufficient ad spending.

That's why desktop web search is less valuable to Google than mobile web search, mobile web search is less valuable to them than map search, map search is less valuable than voice search and voice search while driving is their holy grail because there the ranking game is completely winner takes all. A second page hit on desktop has a better chance at getting traffic than the second place overall in voice while driving. (And those sweet "while driving" hits will almost always be followed by actual business transactions, whereas the old desktop is just a mostly worthless page view)

Afaik Google is far from allowing businesses to directly bid for that coveted number slot (it would ruin their ability to keep the balance between attracting advertisers and attracting eyeballs), but the result is even better for them: when businesses "bid by proxy", via buying other ad products in hope/fear that it might be a factor in the ranking they don't just get the winner's money. I'd absolutely say that drivers are very high on Google's audience priority list, it's just that nobody on that list is a customer.

Selecting/Creating waypoints has been a digital mapping-feature of every service/tool I have used since digital mapping/navigation became a thing. From garmin hand-held off-road GPS topo navigation systems to units used for fishing to hiking/biking.

It has been a cornerstone of digital navigation since the things were invented. To claim that it's an edge-case ignores history and instead highlights how _you_ use the tools.

IMHO it was more obvious that Google wants to you 'actively search' for $waypoint item while enroute instead of pre-planning. "hey google, show me restaurants near me"

That gives them a better way to monopolize on advertising and forced $ from companies in order to stay relevant and appear in those type of searches.

Search along route is surprisingly hard to get right. Results near to the route geographically are not necessarily near in terms of disruption to your route (other side of a river, wrong side of a highway etc.)

To add to the "things are getting worse" narrative, we implemented this properly back in the days when sat navs were still relatively exciting things. Last I saw the algorithm was to do a lightweight route plan through nearby search results and find the ones that made the smallest difference to your arrival time at your final destination. I don't think the google maps search API does that yet, although I haven't worked in the area for quite a while.

The Android app will show you how much each search result along the destination will add to your route. It also shows the gas prices if you're looking for fuel.

This is exactly what I usually want to do with maps. I have a route I want to plan, and I want to do more than one thing along my route, or see what else is in the area. It's futile in Google Maps.

I see no reason that supporting this thing that old mapping software used to support would elevate it "above" other use cases. If you just want a single route, you do one search and you see the result and you never click the "add" button, no problem.

I should dig out an old Delorme Street Atlas CDROM and install it in a VM, to get some sense of how many clicks it took to do the things I used to do. I don't think it was many. It was definitely pickier about address entry; that's one place Google has absolutely improved. But aside from that, it was way more powerful at pretty much everything else.

Not trying to just nitpick, but if we assume that the Google Maps use research and data from users when planning features then the feature you're after may actually not be very common.

And your answer to someone asking "Why do you think that use case is that common?", your first line literally just talks about your use case from your point of view:

> This is exactly what _I_ usually want to do with maps. _I_ have a route _I_ want to plan, and _I_ want to do more than one thing along my route, or see what else is in the area. It's futile in Google Maps.

I'm not saying that wouldn't be useful, it's just that maybe not that many people need it... I guess it was built with the idea that you would just open more tabs to search other things?

> if we assume that the Google Maps use research and data from users when planning features

Based on what I've seen from Google product design, this is a pretty bold assumption.

While Google has access to unfathomable amounts of data collected from users, it's more than happy to eschew that if the data conflict with higher-level product or company strategy decisions, which generally are much less motivated by raw user data,

Because it's a map. That's what you do with maps. You browse them, you study them, you mark them up.

I use Google Maps almost daily and this is also my complaint. It's not a hyper-specific use case. Google Maps are good for navigating from point A to point B when you are sure of both, but they suck at being a map. For instance, lack of always-on street names and weird POI handling makes them problematic to use when you want to explore the area you're in.

I disagree. That's what we used to do with a map because we did not have information available at our fingertips.

We would study the map ahead of time, based on the map figure out our plan of action by either making mental notes or notes in notepad, or notes on a map and eventually execute our plan based on the information we have selected.

We no longer need to do that. We can decide "I want to do something around X" , go to X and when we want to do something specific ask maps "Where can I find Y around X"?

Ability to drop pins removed the need to study map to complete most of the tasks. When one stumbles upon something interesting while reading a book, watching a show, scrolling through eater, one can drop a pin on a map so next time that person is in the area the pin is there!

Repeatedly searching and dropping pins in Google Maps is like eating your dinner by pulping it and drinking through a straw.

Studying a map ahead of time and marking it up (on the map itself, as we did with paper maps and dry-erase or permanent markers) is a more efficient interface. There's this forgotten principle in UI that users can mentally filter out noise and focus on relevant parts very good; that's what our sense of sight is optimized for. Having to actively search whenever you need to know something is an inferior experience, both in terms of efficiency and because of missing context.

(Also, dropping permanent pins is AFAIK impossible in the Google Maps proper; it's a feature of "my maps", which is hidden somewhere and has weird interactions with Google Maps.)

> Repeatedly searching and dropping pins in Google Maps is like eating your dinner by pulping it and drinking through a straw.

You are thinking about it as a synchronous workflow. Study map->create a plan->execute a plan. This workflow was the only workflow because it was impossible to execute a search when needed.

Google maps is optimized for a modern workflow. "I'm here. I need X. How do I get there?" With pins that workflow is asynchronous.

For example, I use pins for restaurants. I find/read something about a place I want to try at some point. I drop pins. Next time when I happened to be in the area I see the pins that I dropped. It may happened to tomorrow or three months from now. My alternative is yelp with its sync workflow - search and analyze results of a search or rely on my memory of what place should be around where.

That's what Google's "My Maps" does. It allows you to mark up a map. I've used it for planning trips frequently to mark places of interest and then used that map to plan my trip using regular ol' Maps for the turn-by-turn.

That's how I plan virtually every multi-stop journey. And adding this functionality would not take away from the usability of gmaps for single-leg journeys with no stops.

Because it's so simple. I've been wanting it for YEARS. What's more simple than planning a trip? What else do you need a map for if you're not planning to go from point A to point B?

I hate when I need a restaurant or gas station ALONG MY ROUTE and yet years later no maps have this ability. It's insane.

I can do that today. What app are you using?

You can search along the route if you are navigating, however I agree it could be improved in that you don't get to see any details of a place or add it to saved places (you either add a stop or don't). I don't think Maps is bad for this reason but I agree it is possible to improve.

Making guesses isn’t a problem. The ideal information software requires no interaction at all! You open your maps app in the morning, and it instantly brings up how to get to your next calendar appointment. If you’re making a long drive, it automatically suggests a gas station along the route. The more our software can infer, the better!

Bret Victor has a great essay on building information software called “Magic Ink” [1]:

> Information software, by contrast, mimics the experience of reading, not working. It is used for achieving an understanding—constructing a model within the mind. Thus, the user must listen to the software and think about what it says… but any manipulation happens mentally. Except possibly for signaling a decision, such as clicking a “buy” button, but that concludes, not constitutes, a session. The only reason to complete the full interaction cycle and speak is to explicitly provide some context that the software can’t otherwise infer—that is, to indicate a relevant subset of information. For information software, all interaction is essentially navigation around a data space.

Of course, guessing poorly is a problem, but that’s an issue with execution.

[1] http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/#interactivity_considered_har...

It's not guessing poorly that is the problem.

The problem is guessing poorly, and making it cumbersome for the user to override your guess.

> The process you WANT: pick your start and end. now start searching for places in between. Your start and end are saved. When you find someplace interesting, add it to your list. Keep doing that, keep searching and adding

Am I missing something - this use-case is already supported! You choose start & endpoints, then your start the trip (which "saves" them) - you can now search and add as many waypoints as you desire

That's what I was thinking, I do that all the time.

For example, do a map of San Francisco to New York City. Now you want to visit the world's largest ball of twine, so you add a waypoint, and start typing "Ball of Twine" and a drop-down will appear with a few choices, pick the one you want and it'll add to the map. You can re-order them as needed to optimize your route.

You still need to know the name or address of the waypoint you want to add, but that's the case with paper maps and is a good use of browser tabs to search for it.

I've been using Google Maps since it launched, and had no idea this is how it works!

One important factor in a good UI is that it is discoverable! If you build an amazing feature but forget to inform the user about it, you've wasted the work.

I discovered this by myself - I mean, the search button is right there! I must have been in the middle of a trip & searched for something, which pops up an "Add Stop" button. I think it's pretty discoverable.

I'm glad you discovered this, but let's look at a strawman grandma: "the search bar is where you type where you want to go, therefore if I search, it will turn off my current navigation / reroute my destination to whatever I am searching for".

The above is not a foregone conclusion, but it was how I thought until I read your and parent's postings about it, and I'm a techie. For every 1 techie that doesn't know about a feature, there are 1,000 users (or something like that).

I would posit that the discover-ability difficulties are present whether someone is in a TUI or a GUI.

I'm specifically referring to the Google Maps mobile app - it doesn't have a search bar, but has buttons that come and go depending on your current context. If a button is visible in your context, you can bet it works in that context. As an example, the layer, compass and search buttons are present when you're not navigating, but once you start, the layer and compass buttons are replaced by the audio chatiness button. The search button is still present, and the implication is that its usable in my current context: that's great discoverability in my book.

I only hit start when I start driving, and then I don't look at the screen much, since I'm driving.

If you hit start before, it starts talking a lot, and that's annoying.

To be fir, I've never really wanted this feature much, so I haven't tried to find it.

I just recorded a two minute video me of me trying to do this. Maybe it will help you understand why people like Gravis (and myself) are frustrated. The video is at http://paste.stevelosh.com/1983.webm but it's a little blurry, so I'll narrate it.

(There's a less blurry mkv at http://paste.stevelosh.com/1983.mkv for those that want it.)

I go to `maps.google.com`. The page loads a search box, with my cursor focused inside it. Then it unfocuses the search box while some other boxes pop in. Then it refocuses the search box. Is it done thrashing? Can I type yet? I wait for a few seconds. I would have already entered in my query by now in 1983. I sigh. This bodes well.

I guess it's as done as it's ever gonna be. I search for "rochester ny to montreal qc". I wait for the screen to load. It finds me a route, which is actually good. Step one done.

Now I want to find a restaurant somewhere in the middle. Let's try just browsing around. I find somewhere roughly in the middle — Watertown seems like a good place to stop.

I zoom in on Watertown. I wait for the screen to load. I look around the map and see some restaurants, so I click one. Now I want to read the reviews, so I scroll down to find the "See All Reviews" link. My scroll wheel stops working after I scroll more than an inch or two at a time, until I move it out of the left hand pane and back inside it. I sigh, wiggle my mouse back and forth repeatedly to scroll down and click on the link.

A whirl of colors — suddenly the map zooms in on the location. Why does it do this? I wanted to read the reviews, not look more closely at the map! Now that the map is zoomed in, a hundred other points of interest are suddenly cluttering the map. I wanted to read reviews about this restaurant, and suddenly 3/4 of my screen is filled with text about other places. I sigh.

I ignore the garbage now cluttering most of my screen and read some reviews. This place seems fine. I click the back arrow, then click Add Stop to add it to the route. I wait for the screen to load. Suddenly my screen whirls with color and zooms out, losing my view of Watertown. I sigh.

My trip is now 8.5 hours instead of 5.5, because it added the new stop at the end. AlphaGo can win Go tournaments, but I guess it would be too much to ask for Google to somehow divine that when I add a stop in the middle of a 5.5 hour trip, I might want to visit it on the way by default. I sigh and manually reorder the stops.

Let's also find a gas station somewhere before Montreal, because I like to get gas before I get into the city so I don't have to deal with it once I'm in. Cornwall seems like a good place to stop.

I zoom in on Cornwall. I wait for the screen to load. I don't see any gas stations markers, but that's fine, there's a button that says "Gas stations" on the left! I click it and the screen goes blank. I wait for the screen to load. I've suddenly been whisked away to downtown Montreal instead of looking around where I'm currently centered on the map. Guess I should have read the heading above the buttons first. I sigh.

I click "back to directions". I wait for the screen to load. The map does not return to where I was previously, it just zooms to show the entire route, throwing out my zoomed-in application state. I think back to Gravis' tweet of "gmaps wildly thrashes the map around every time you do anything. Any time you search, almost any time you click on anything" and I sigh.

I rezoom in on Cornwall. I wait for the screen to load. The gas station button didn't work, but surely we can search, right? I don't see a search box on the screen, so I roll the dice and hit Add Destination. This gives me a text box, so I try searching for "gas stations" and pressing enter. This apparently didn't search, but just added one particular gas station to the route. It also zoomed me back out, throwing away my previous zoomed in view.

I rezoom in on Cornwall. I wait for the screen to load. I notice the gas station it picked happens to be across the US/Canada border from the route. That clearly won't work. I sigh and remove the destination. This zooms me back out (I wait for the screen to load), throwing away my previous zoomed in view.

I rezoom in on Cornwall. I wait for the screen to load. I click Add Destination again and this time notice that when my cursor is in the box, there's a magnifying glass icon — the universal icon for "search" — right next to the X icon (which will surely close the box). It even has a tooltip that says "Search"! Aha! That was well-hidden, UI designer, but I've surely defeated you. I click the magnifying glass icon and it… closes the input box. I… what? I sigh, loudly. It has also zoomed me out, throwing away my previous zoomed in view. I wait for the screen to load.

I rezoom in on Cornwall. I wait for the screen to load. Okay, apparently I can't search to try to find routes. I guess I'll resort to browsing around the map again. I notice what looks like a gas station called "Pioneer" and click on it. Cool. But then I realize this is on a bit of a side street. Surely I can find a gas station along the main road. Let me just cancel out of this location by pressing X.

My entire route is completely gone. All that time I just spent, flushed down the toilet. To add insult to injury: this is the one time that it didn't automatically zoom me out and lose my view of the map. It just threw away all of my other state.

Fuck this. I'm with Gravis.

You know, the back button works in Google Maps and does exactly what you might think it does: take you back to the state you were just in.

After you accidentally lost your route, you could have just used a built in feature of your browser to get yourself back to where you were.

EDIT: The rest of your post was entirely accurate. Google Maps is a slow, stuttery mess on literally every platform I've ever used it on recently. At least the back button works...

I guess years of using single page Javascript webapps where the back button is a complete shitshow has trained me to not even consider trying it. I'm impressed it actually works on Google Maps.

Edit: yes. Rewrote half of it.

The thing with Google Maps was that it was actually reasonably good and intuitive on mobile until sometime 5 or 7 years ago when someone decided it had to be "simplified".

The old version was easy: you enter "to" and "from", and it gives you a route.

I think it also had multiple entry points so you could choose "navigate", "browse" and "timeline" or something directly from the system menu.

The "simplified" version removed all that + the timeline feature I think and replaced it with one search box.

The timeline came back after a while as did a number of other features they removed but it still isn't as easy or intuitive as the early versions and it still annoys me every time I want to get a route from A to B (as opposed to from where I am now to B).

Compare this to Windows 95 that I disliked for a few months until I got used to system wide drag and drop and realized it was in fact better than Windows 3.1.

Performance has also degraded disastrously. My phone is kind of a dinosaur at this point (Galaxy 7), but the lag when scrolling around the map is seconds, and elements delay-load so that misclicks are constant.

Changed to an iPhone XR a few weeks ago. The cheap model of iPhone and it still feels way faster than the my latest androids, including Samsung S7 edge and other flagship phones (and yes, I bought them new).

I've stuck with Android until now, but now that I can replace the keyboard on iPhone I gave it a chance and I'm super happy with it.

You are comparing a 3 gen old device to the previous gen iPhone.

iPhone 7 I had is noticeably laggy with maps and other heavy apps.

Meanwhile my Samsung S10e (equivalent to the XR) has more than sufficient performance and has a better screen for a lower price.

I tried to hint at this being a problem also when I bought them new, but I can see that it wasn't to clearly written.

My point is that my current iPhone is the first phone since my Samsung S2 that hasn't disappointed me by being slow more or less immediately after unboxing it.

>The thing with Google Maps was that it was actually reasonably good and intuitive on mobile until sometime 5 or 7 years ago when someone (probably a UX designer : ) decided it had to be simplified.

All Google stuff ended up doing this when they started trying to standardize their "design language" across their services. They developed a very annoying habit of hiding every useful function or bit of relevant contextual information inside a poorly marked hamburger menu somewhere. It's extremely annoying from a discoverability perspective and I strongly suspect any UX designers involved lost a lot of arguments for a decision like that to get codified.

I'm convinced this is the entire purpose of Google PMs; take a good product, make it "prettier", strip away functionality and usability, move to another department, get replaced by someone whose goal it is to make the product even prettier-er, strip away even more functionality, wash/rinse/repeat.

Is there a single person who prefers the monochrome GMail UI where you can't easily visually parse one thread from another, or the "new and improved" functionality where you need to click at least 2 or 3 times to even SEE what address you're sending to or from, or to change the subject?

> popular service 'x' doesn't exactly fit my power user need 'y', therefore x is hopelessly borked, poorly designed, and borderline useless.

So you are telling me that wanting to see the name of a given street without having to zoom 10000x (and even then sometimes...) or figuring out how to get the directions to and from somewhere are "power users needs"?

Give me a break. Google maps was way easier to user as a map before. Now it prioritizes ad revenue at the expense of what users actually want to do.

There are no "power users" in this new world.

Getting directions is simple. Even the author doesn't take issue with that specific functionality. And I've never had an issue with Google maps hiding street names when there was ample room to show them, but if you're more than a little zoomed out, there isn't that room. Showing only major roads is a decent trade off, as is the mouse scroll wheel for zoom in/out. Or maybe it's my own failure of imagination: how would you improve in this particular area?

There are definitely cases where I am so zoomed in that only a couple of roads are visible on the entire screen, yet there is no name on a road and I have to drag the view down the road multiple screen widths until I can see the name. (This isn't a trade-off for advertising, it's just a flaw.)

Edit: In fact, I just confirmed it now. Opened up Google Maps and started looking at small roads. For the third road I checked, Maps wouldn't show a name no matter how far I zoomed in, and I had to drag the view as described above.

It's really not about not having enough room. An example that I found immediately zooming at some random location on Google Maps: https://svkt.org/~simias/up/20191219-174804_map.png

Note that none of the larger roads leading to the roundabout at the top-left is named, while some (but not all) smaller streets names are here. Instead you have the "D509" label copy/pasted haphazardly but that's not the actual name of the boulevard that would be used on a post address so it's of very limited use (and even leaving those labels in there's plenty of room to add the actual street name).

Here's Open Street Map for the same map at a similar zoom level: https://svkt.org/~simias/up/20191219-175553_map-osm.png

OSM doesn't have all the bells and whistles of GMaps, but as far as the map itself it's vastly superior IMO.

I think the D509 type of issue is just a trade off. At least when in happens in the US: It is the "official" designation and can be used on Post, while the local name changes from town to town. That is less of an issue when navigating within the same town, more of an issue when navigating through towns: Go 30 miles along a "CR" county road and it might change names 4 times. Rather confusing for directions to make it look like you have to travel down 4 different roads for that one leg of the journey. I suppose Google could show both though, depending on zoom level.

> Getting directions is simple. Even the author doesn't take issue with that specific functionality.

Yes he does. You touch anything and state is erased. Don't know exactly which one of the search results you want to go to? Tough shit, the interface works against you.

And still, getting directions used to be simpler. Now you have to decipher unlabeled hieroglyphs, and the interface keeps changing. You can't even get used to it. You are constantly being nudged to do shit that is not what you really want to do, such as "exploring your neighborhood".

> And I've never had an issue with Google maps hiding street names when there was ample room to show them, but if you're more than a little zoomed out, there isn't that room. Showing only major roads is a decent trade off, as is the mouse scroll wheel for zoom in/out.

Luck you, I guess. I have this problem all the time. A better trade off: if I searched for "Market Street", show that label! That would be a start. And frequently labels aren't shown even when there is plenty of space.

Oh, and why not show the scale of the map by default? Is this also a "power user" feature? I thought it was a crucial piece of information when reading a map...

> Or maybe it's my own failure of imagination: how would you improve in this particular area?

Easy. Revert to the interface circa 2010. It had none of the above problems.

Exactly. It basically forces you to walk with the map open and not just do like 'keeping walking straight until you see road x'. Such a damming thing when you are walking 15-20 minutes to a place in a new city or even in an unknown area in your city.

Granted, some good ideas.

I've given up on street names. The problem of unlabeled street names is worst in cities (where you generally need directions the most) because the GPS has a high chance of being lost due to tall buildings and other disruptions.

I should be able to get directions without having the GPS. If the GPS is lost, I really need those street names, NOW, without touching my phone.

Don't get me started on names of bus stops

It's not just about 'power users', and you can see this easily by looking at car dashboard controls for standard consumer cars over the last couple of decades. Old controls had the property that you could in most cases feel and adjust them without looking, and they responded instantly. Today one is often forced to interact with a touchscreen which has to be looked at it while driving, responds poorly and erratically to touch, and often buries basic options in deep menus. A simple thing like lowering stereo volume, previously instantaneous, can now have a significant latency.

None of the above is about power users. And none of this is innate to today's hardware. It's a matter of prioritization.

And consumers, though initially swayed by shiny objects, do eventually respond to good design and good engineering. Indeed Google itself found its early success partly through clean and thoughtful design, at a time when other search engine websites were massively cluttered and banner ads were the bane of the Web.

Two points:

They keep changing the interface faster than I can learn it.

The way to enable complex expression of tasks in a user interface is by composition. ie have microtasks that you can then combine in different ways.

That's what makes excel great - each cell is a single function but you can combine them to build stuff the developer never knew was possible.

Being able to store state ( a location ) and then operate on that state is a pretty basic building block of a composable map UI.

>But balance that against the 100s or 1000s of times you used google maps and it just worked, perfectly, because it reduced the number of inputs needed to use it to the bare minimum.

I can't, because the autocomplete/dropdown/prediction for saved locations is disabled if you don't enable Google's device-wide "Web and App Activity" spyware function. This means I have to type my address every time I want directions home, even though I manually saved it. It's hot garbage.

Another very common usecase which is impossible: getting directions to a place and then looking at the street view so I'll know what it looks like. I have to remember to check street view before the search or redo the search entirely. Again, hot garbage, and inexcusable for a company spending bazillions of dollars on UX people.

I have a problem rather frequently with Google maps. I zoom in to a small 3x3 mile area and search for something like Chinese restaurants. What usually happens is Google either zooms out to the entire city (a 100x100 mile area) or it zooms away completely back to my home city. That's fucking annoying.

Then I manually place everything back to where I actually wanted it and had it in the first place, and lo and behold it's showing me every kind of restaurant instead of Chinese restaurants. I have to click the search this area button which of course conveniently wasn't on the original screen to get the results I wanted in the first place.

Then I click on a restaurant to look at the pictures and read the reviews and when I'm done I naturally click the back button and it's all gone. I'm back to some other screen, maybe an empty map or one of the screens I was on previously that I didn't want, but it's almost never the list of Chinese restaurants in the small geographic area I was researching in the first place.

And that's just one example of one problem I regularly have with Google Maps. It's a horrible horrible user experience if you aren't using it in the way they think you should be using it.

I don't think this is a power user use case. Everybody wants to look up Chinese restaurants at a family or friend's house at some point in their life. Why is this so fucking hard?

There are many excellent points made in response to your comment, but I'd like to point out one thing:

> popular service 'x' doesn't exactly fit my power user need 'y'

Being a power user isn't a function of geekness, or a mark of belonging to some niche. Being a power user is a function of frequency and depth of use.

My wife is a power user of a particular e-commerce seller backend, a certain CAD software, and Excel, all due to her job. She is not technical, but when you spend 8 hours a day each day in front of some piece of software, you eventually do become a power user. Teenagers of today are power users of Snapchat, because they use it all the time.

Software being "power user friendly" isn't about accommodating existing power users; it's about allowing power users of that software to appear. It's about allowing the room for growth, allowing to do more with less effort. Software that doesn't becomes a toy, inviting only shallow, casual interaction. It's not all it could be. And it's the worst when software that was power user friendly becomes less so over time - it takes back the value it once gave to people.

The Office 2007 redesign was panned for similar reasons. Power users couldn’t understand why the biggest, most prominently placed buttons were for copy and paste, when everyone knew that you could use ctrl+c and ctrl+v instead. Turns out, only the power users knew that and the vast majority of users clicked 4 times for edit-copy, edit-paste. Now they only had to click twice.

This was a quality of life improvement for the vast majority of users, even if it wasn’t for the minority who used it the most.

Indeed, but even without getting into the details of UX tradeoffs, etc... Google Maps was science fiction in 1983. The whole thread misses the fact that the functionality we have in our pockets today would have absolutely blown our minds in 1983. How can it be called perceptually slower?

Simple. Because it got slower over time.

All these threads about software being worse and "perceptually slower" than it used to are about regressions. Google Maps and other mentioned tools aren't pushing the envelope. They aren't bleeding edge. They were science fiction made manifest 10-15 years ago, and since then actually decayed in utility, ergonomics and performance. Meanwhile, all the money invested in all the software and hardware should have given us the opposite outcome.

I get your point, and it has its merit, but at some point you'd expect things to slow down, right?

My experience makes me expect it, on the theory that popular software sucks and companies building it tend to have broken incentive structures.

It shouldn't be like this in theory. Computers only ever get faster (occasional fixes for CPU bugs notwithstanding). So making software slow down requires active work. So does removing or breaking useful features.

While utility and ergonomics can be debated, I'd be surprised if performance of Google Maps in particular has regressed. Google keeps track of latency metrics for every one of its thousands (millions?) of services. If the services involved in Google Maps began to regress in latency, it would have been noticed and addressed. You can be sure that many performance improvements have been implemented, and if you had access to the 2005 and 2019 versions, you would be amazed at how capable and fast today's is compared to then.

I don't have access to 2005 vs. 2019 versions to Google Maps to compare, but I really don't care about latency as much as I care about local performance. Google Maps is getting noticeably heavy over time.

What I have good memory about though is GMail. I've been using it for 10+ years now and that really keeps getting slower and heavier over time, while offering no extra functionality to compensate.

Google may track latency metrics for all their services, yet somehow, the stuff they do is one of the most bloated stuff out there. I guess they don't look at, or care, about those metrics.

Google has an alternate interface to maps called "My Maps"[1] with the kind of editing and composition features the author misses. I use it all the time to make maps for road trips with lots of points of interest and complicated routes.

[1] https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/

I tried mymaps some time ago, but there was no way (or i couldn't figure it out) to have gmaps use it for navigation. The two seemed to be quite separate products.

You had me until you started minimizing power users, like pretty much every software developer today. I don't see the guesswork as a good thing; Google Maps hasn't "just worked" for me anywhere near 100% of the time in years. "One step forward, two steps back" would almost perfectly describe GMap's "smartness"

My biggest complaint about google maps is that you cant read them when printed. I've been criticized for even wanting to print them, but the option is there with unreadable results.

I like his point about not knowing what to look for. On a paper map, you can see all of the points of interest for a specific location. This is great for planning trips. On google maps, you might not see what's around until you zoom in, but you don't know where to zoom in the first place.

Except the guesses need to be good. I make it a point to avoid criticizing applications for not being power usery enough but there's a line you can draw where it becomes clear that the guesses are too frequent and consuming too much computing power, just to be ignored.

I've seen this a lot with my mother in particular, who is certainly not a power user but knows enough to get by, struggle to use software that's trying too damn hard to guess what she wants, instead of letting her just tell it what she freaking wants.

It's like how Microsoft announced they were going to use advanced AI to predict when would be a good time to reboot people's PCs for updates instead of, you know, just fucking letting them pick.

Or the myriad of ways I struggle with my Apple products that are almost universally black boxes in which stuff goes and functionality comes out, without any way to change or debug behaviors.

Apple seems to get it right pretty consistently, which is why I keep their stuff. But when it does manage to go wrong, holy shit debugging it is an absolute nightmare.

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