Google launched a big Google Maps upgrade a few weeks ago, together with a big redesign and new AI options. The brand new Google Maps shade palette is now much like Apple Maps, which is one widespread criticism from customers. It’s not essentially unhealthy, however I can see how longtime Google Maps customers could have problem adjusting to the brand new colours. And no, there’s no technique to swap again to the outdated theme.
The brand new colours have been rolling out extra extensively, drawing extra criticism from customers who’ve discovered themselves experiencing a brand new Google Maps design in a single day. Amongst them is former Google Maps designer Elizabeth Laraki, who took to Twitter/X to complain in regards to the new Google Maps design.
She penned a prolonged overview of Google Maps, principally complaining in regards to the litter that now impacts the Google Maps expertise, somewhat than the colour selections.
The colour selections
She mentioned that 15 years in the past, she helped design Google Maps. “I nonetheless use it day by day. Final week, the group dramatically modified the map’s visible design,” she continued. “I don’t like it. It feels colder, much less correct and fewer human. However extra importantly, they missed a key alternative to simplify and scale.”
Laraki then highlighted the most important shade modifications coming to Google Maps:
- All roads at the moment are grey
- Water modified from blue to teal
- Parks and open areas at the moment are mint inexperienced
In the event you haven’t seen the brand new colours, you’ll spot them quickly. It simply means the Google Maps redesign hasn’t rolled out but in your area.
The previous Google Maps designer says she sees advantages, acknowledging that Google’s aim was to enhance usability and make maps extra readable. “Admittedly, I do assume main roads, site visitors, and trails stand out extra now,” she mentioned whereas complaining in regards to the colder shade palette that feels “extra pc generated.”
She additionally identified that the colours of water and parks/open areas mix collectively.
The Google Maps UI is getting worse
Laraki’s foremost grievance addresses the general Google Maps expertise. She mentioned that Google missed a “large alternative” if the aim was to enhance usability. The designer listed all of the issues that sit on prime of the map in Google Maps, making usability an issue:
A lot stuff has amassed on prime of the map. At the moment there are ~11 totally different components obscuring it:
- Search field
- 8 drugs overlayed in 4 rows
- A peeking card for ‘newest within the space’
- A backside nav bar
The next picture exhibits the overlays Laraki talked about:
“Personally, I might LOVE to see utilization metrics for all these overlays,” she continued. “The map must be sacred actual property. Solely issues which might be extremely helpful to many individuals ought to obscure it. There must be a really restricted variety of options that may cowl the map view. And there are a number of methods so as to add new options with out overlaying them straight on the map.”
How can Google repair Google Maps?
The designer won’t be engaged on Google Maps anymore, however she proposed a a lot cleaner Google Maps UI that retains the colours in place however eliminates lots of the overlays:
As you possibly can see above, Laraki would hold the search bar and the underside bar. However she would transfer all the things else right into a redesigned backside bar.
I’ve to say I’m an enormous fan of Laraki’s solutions, and I say that as a Google Maps consumer who not often faucets a lot of the map overlays.
“I assume the search field and instructions are prime precedence and will stay distinguished,” she mentioned. “However all the things else, together with location buttons, the map layers, close by locations, and different components, might sit within the backside bar”
The previous Google designer acknowledged that it’s regular for apps to build up options over time. Google Maps isn’t any totally different. It occurred throughout her time as a Google Maps designer in 2007 when the app had turn out to be a “cluttered mess.”
“We have been wedging new options into any area we might discover within the UI,” she continued. “The consumer expertise was struggling and the product was rising more and more difficult. We needed to rethink the app to be easy and scale for the long run.”
Laraki thinks it’s time for Google Maps to do it once more.
