Unimprovement

[fatrockstar]

I last used Google Maps for Mother's Day to get to a country club in Burien. I like the way maps render on Google Maps better than the ones on Yahoo or Mapquest because the streets are easier to see with my declining vision. I also liked the print feature, because you could print up your directions AND a decent-sized map for your trip.

Not anymore.

Sometime between Mother's Day and now, the Google Maps team thought it was a better idea to make the directions themselves more prevalent in the printout. Now instead of getting a navigable map, I get thumbnails. "Here's a closeup of your start point, your end point, and a teeny little map for your overview -- all to make your printout more streamlined! You can even remove the thumbnails if you want!" Yeah, but what about the BIG map? "Oh, that.. we're all under 30 and don't actually go anywhere because the Googleplex provides for our every need. We live at work."

Nice work, Google.

Comments

[edith-mf.livejournal.com]

I have the same problems. I seem to stick with mapquest--study the maps on the screen which I can make bigger, then rely on the text directions.

printable online maps

[adbrown.livejournal.com]

Hi -

I worked for Yahoo! on the map styles, and we've just recently and significantly revamped our map style and printing page, among other things ... I was scanning the web for comments that might be related, and ran across you posting; on a lark, I decided to seek more comment.If you don't mind, could you take a look at http://maps.yahoo.com, and the printout page and style in particular? We do do studies with users on the design of this sort of thing, but it's always good to hear feedback from different forums. In particular, I'm personally interested in the legibility of the map itself - the fonts, getting proper things labeled, etc. We did make our printed map wider, recently, too, although I'm not sure why we don't make use of the extra half-inch to an inch to the right margin. (Personally, I'd like a landscape mode, but that hasn't happened.) We added a Map Layout option (not sure if people know the significance of it), and control over the font size of the printed instructions.

(There are slight differences in the broadband and dial-up map printouts - if you use http://maps.yahoo.com/broadband/index.php , there are a few more details in the maps.)

I have to give credit to a small company we worked with to revamp the styles, called Cartifact. I think they did a very nice job.

Re: printable online maps

[winifred.livejournal.com]

The layout for the printable page is what I'm looking for: Step-by-step directions to my destination accompanied by a map big enough to see from the driver's seat when the printout is either wedged in the dashboard vent or lying in the passenger seat. I like that there is a choice between map layouts. The little maps don't help me a bit, but if you have a passenger navigator they come in handy sometimes.

On both the dialup and broadband mapsI have to zoom in very very close or I can't see the streets on the map clearly. There needs to be a better contrast between the street lines and the surrounding area, because the printout is hard to see. Sure, you have the nice purple line telling you where to go, but without seeing the other streets on the map there's no visual context for the directions, which is how *I* tend to read maps.

Also, it would be helpful for the white outlined streets to appear at a further out zoom. As it is now, the zoom right before 'street' on the gage is the point where these visible lines appear and print clearly.

Related to that, the printable broadband map always shows the next zoom out instead of the one I chose from the main screen. This is a problem if I want enough map to see where I'm going -- I had to go back and forth between print and nav modes a couple of times before I have the printable map right where I want it because of this. Maybe I was using it wrong, I'm willing to admit that.

That's my sanity-check BVT for ya. You can send my $35 to me in care of the Evil Empire, since I'm working there now. ;-)

Re: printable online maps

[adbrown.livejournal.com]

Which Evil Empire? The one in Redmond, Mountain View, somewhere in a cave in Afghanistan, or Washington, D.C.? ;) (I assume sarcastic comments about the Googleplex nix the Mountain View option ... I'm betting on the Afghan cave ...)

I'll take these things into consideration. Ideally we'd have a seperate black-and-white style for printing - I think some of the contrast issues have to do with designing for color online maps, but not for maps printed on a black and white printer. They're actually better than they used to be, and we do examine that. Some of the designers might get unhappy about darkening those lines, because it would make the online color maps less attractive.

Label density on roads is a trick, for context. Unless you have a really sophisticated algorithm for handling both rural areas and urban areas, you end up making one too cluttered and confused, or the other too empty. With the algorithm we have, I tried to balance the two, but there's always room for improvement.

The difference in zoom level between what you see on the broadband maps and what you see in the printout is something I've been aware of. Sure, *I* know how to futz around with it to get it to print exactly what I want, but if you don't futz, it tends to zip out a level, which people might only discover when they're on the road.

I'll take your feedback under advisement. This was my personal venture out, so who knows what would really get approved to be changed, but you never know. Thanks for your time.

Re: printable online maps

[winifred.livejournal.com]

The one in Redmond. We've been connected to it in one way or another since about 1995. The Googleplex is another story entirely -- I spent some time at their annex in Kirkland and had a generally positive experience.

I didn't see a problem with labeling. Any labeling issues I may have had were taken care of once I zoomed in enough. The big issue was the contrast. Send my regards to your designers, because I know how sensitive they can be about their artwork, but usability has to take precidence in this case. A map is useless if you can't read it.