Changing the interface of software used by millions of users is never easy. Google Maps is surely the most blatant proof of this in recent weeks.
You may have noticed a major change in Google Maps in recent days. Google’s mapping and navigation application has in fact completely changed its color palette, whether on the web, on Android or on iOS. The roads, previously orange, are now gray, the bodies of water are now turquoise blue and even the green spaces are lighter.
“Colder and less human” colors
These changes, which Google had actually announced at the end of last October at the same time as many other features, did not only make people happy. On Reddit, many Internet users are complaining about this development in the design of their application. And it’s not just users who are up in arms against this choice made by Google. Even a former employee of the company in charge of the design of Google Maps 15 years ago has her say on the artistic direction chosen by Google.
Elizabeth Laraki, former head of user interface on the Google Maps team from 2007 to 2009, published a fairly elaborate review of this new version of Maps on Twitter. According to her, the chosen color palette seems “colder, less precise and less human“. And if she admits that “the main roads, road traffic and the different paths stand out better”, making the card “more ergonomic and more readable», the designer still explains that “the colors of water and parks/green spaces mix» and the choice of colors seems “decided by a computer», and not by specialists in the human/machine interface.
An overloaded interface
But the biggest criticism that Elizabeth Laraki makes of this new version of Google Maps does not concern the colors, but the interface itself. According to her, such a revision of the application should have been accompanied by a clean-up of the number of elements displayed on the screen. The numerous buttons, menus, search bar and other navigation options overload the user interface and are completely contrary to current trends which want the interface to fade behind the content.
According to the specialist, “the basemap should take up most of the screen and only features that are very useful to a large number of people should obscure it. The number of elements that can cover the map view should be very limited.» It’s true that when we compare the Google Maps interface to that of Apple Maps, the search giant’s app seems slightly overloaded. “It is normal for software to accumulate features over time. But it is also very important to remain vigilant and clean the interface constantly“, explains Elizabeth Laraki.
As a warning, she explains that already in 2007 “Maps was very cluttered and we were stuffing new features into every space we could find within the UI. The experience suffered and the product became more and more complicated.“. Perhaps it’s time for Google to rethink its experience again.
Source : Elizabeth Laraki – X/Twitter
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