8 ms·

Maps has really become a chore to use, too. I remember getting directions used to be easy once and now it's like interacting with enterprise software.

by gdulli 11y ago

icebraining 11y ago
What? If you left-click in a place, a small card appears with an arrow that you can click to get directions. If you right-click, you can get directions from or to the place. And if you search, you also get a very visible round button with an arrow and the label "Directions". How is it hard? EDIT: Sorry if this came out as aggressive. I'm just dumbfounded, that's all.
- andyana 11y ago
  I have the same complaint. I can't explain how it has changed, but it used to be easy. Now it is difficult and error prone. I guess I just never paid attention to it when it was easy.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    But why is it difficult and error prone now? I frankly cannot see it. What steps do you take, and where do you stumble?
    - andyana 11y ago
      I can't run through it right now, but I guess there are simply too many steps to go from address to navigation. It used to be, as best I recall, input address -> click navigate. The error part comes in from making me visually choose from a list of addresses after I have already put in a specific address (search is not needed). The difficult part comes in to play when I am trying to get somewhere and the app is making me navigate through several interactions.
      - icebraining 11y ago
        But you don't need to search. Open maps.google.com, then type the address and click on the arrow; it'll open the two directions input screen with the destination already filled in. Now you can just choose the origin (e.g. click on "my location") and it'll show you the route.
        d23 11y ago
        This is the problem. You can't argue a user into accepting that their experience is better. You have a whole swath of people saying maps has gotten significantly more cumbersome over the last few years. Telling the user they are wrong and giving them coping strategies to handle the UX awkwardness is just insulting.
        icebraining 11y ago
        I'm not even a Google employee, let alone a Gmail developer, so I don't see how is it insulting. I'm simply explaining why I don't see the problem being reported.
        pcthrowaway 11y ago
        I also have no problem with gmail currently. I suspect only the people with complaints are being vocal here. It's gotten leaps and bounds more useful than it was 4-5 years ago. Transit directions are much easier to use. One of the only things I can complain about is that on mobile, if I've conducted a transit direction search then the results I get are for the given time. If I miss a bus or don't leave until a bit later and want to re-run the search again at the current time (some buses may have stopped running if I get delayed leavng party for example), I have to actually input the time on my phone; there's no way to re-run the search with the current time. It's mind-blowing to me that they wouldn't make it easier to have a transit search use the current time, and instead continue to use a route from anywhere from 15 minutes-3 hours ago. Why would I even be performing the search again if I wanted the same routes.
- potatolicious 11y ago
  My beef with GMaps is its performance. The UI is for the most part fine (though there some awful blunders that were later fixed). Loading GMaps takes forever now and brings my entire browser to a freezing stop (Chrome OSX) until it's done doing whatever it's doing. This is a modern desktop (i7, 16GB RAM, discrete graphics). Even after it's done "loading" if you try to interact with the map right away it does so at a crawl - inputs take multiple seconds to register and panning/zooming runs at about 2 frames a second. It takes about 10-15 seconds after load for the site to be fully functional and performant. That's insane. Ditto the Satellite view. Yeah, having 3D buildings is pretty cool and all, but the performance is atrocious on even fast, modern machines. If that's the tradeoff I'll take the 2D satellite imagery back please. Overall interacting with GMaps is itself a chore, and it almost entirely comes down to bad performance. This is especially frustrating on mobile if you put the performance of GMaps on iOS next to competitors like Apple Maps - the rendering performance is insanely low even on the most up to date hardware like an iPhone 6s. Beyond performance problems, one thing Google didn't fix until recently was that it was literally impossible to see information on an address/place and nearby transit at the same time. They changed Transit from a persistent overlay that can be toggled to a special view mode itself, which would disable itself the moment you clicked on any point of interest on the map. It makes me wonder if anyone on the Maps team lives in a major city.
  - LukeB_UK 11y ago
    Try Lite Mode: https://www.google.com/maps/?force=lite https://www.google.com/maps/?force=lite
    - agumonkey 11y ago
      Too bad they don't tell you about it when your browser hangs.
    - Gmo 11y ago
      THANK YOU ! I so much hate the "new" google maps ... anybody has a alternative ? Somehow, I like the tiles of google maps best :-/
  - deleted 11y ago
- lmm 11y ago
  You used to be able to just click the directions tab and fill in the from and to in the textually-labelled boxes on the left. Now you have to provide it the incantation in the order it wants; in particular you must put the destination in first and then go back and put the start point after. I don't even know if you can do "via" any more, never mind how. And it seems incapable of remembering what mode of transport I want any more.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    You don't have to put the destination first: in the search box, there's a directions button, just press it and it'll show both boxes! I'm with you on the "it forgets the transportation mode" complaint, by the way; even Google Now seems incapable of using it, despite being able to parrot back the setting in the config panel.
    - lmm 11y ago
      The magical mystery UI is the worst part, actually. I (evidently) have no idea what the capabilities are, because the input boxes appear and disappear arbitrarily when you do things.
  - aninhumer 11y ago
    You can do via, but not for public transport, and indeed it magically hides the add destination button if you're not in one of the modes it supports (including if you're in the auto-mode and it's suggested a public transport route). I can kind of see their reasoning, since public transport is often time dependent, but often I don't care about specifics, I just want to get an idea what links exist, and how long I'm going to spend in transport visiting a bunch of places.
- CamperBob2 11y ago
  I think part of the problem is that Maps looks different at random times. I just took this screenshot to answer your post: http://i.imgur.com/SaHMCF2.png http://i.imgur.com/SaHMCF2.png Yes, there's a round "Directions" icon. This time. Frequently, searches for a given address don't bring up that icon or any other UI affordance that indicates how I might get directions to the destination. However, Maps does reliably fill half the screen with photos, random chunks of white space, and other irrelevant visual junk as seen in the above screenshot. I had absolutely no idea that Maps had a right-click menu, so thanks for that tip (seriously). Right-clicking on an AJAX-based Web page is obviously not a standard or expected UI concept... but given what Google has done with Maps over the last year or so, literally anything helps.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    I can't say I've experienced the lack of a directions button, but I agree that's a major UI failure.
  - potatolicious 11y ago
    > "Yes, there's a round "Directions" icon. This time. Frequently, searches for a given address don't bring up that icon or any other UI affordance that indicates how I might get directions to the destination." This is sadly a really common UX failure in a lot of different apps. One thing that many people still don't seem to realize is that it's more important to be consistent than being smart. I like to call these "hide and seek" UI elements - they display conditionally in an effort to be smart (e.g., no directions are available to this place, so we hide the directions button). But in practice it just confuses users. One thing I keep encouraging, to varying levels of success, is that UIs should always be consistent. If you are unable to provide a feature, disable that element with a helpful tip (e.g., graying out the Directions button and say "Directions not available from this address" or some such).
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - coldpie 11y ago
- gdulli 11y ago
  I'm not a UX expert and don't have the vocabulary to describe what's wrong with it. What I know is that I used to enjoy using it. Not just for directions, but I'd use it for fun to explore new areas. And now I dislike and avoid using it altogether. Similar to Gmail. It's just feels like a mess of UI elements that show and hide and move dynamically, don't have fixed spots on the page, don't work consistently, etc. Like it was excessively focus-grouped or committee-designed. I know how to get directions in the new interface. I just don't like doing it. Is it more clicks? More elements taking up space I don't care about? Hijacking the native right-click menu? Aggressive resizing/panning when I didn't ask for it, to accommodate what it thinks the new context should be? I don't really know.
  - colomon 11y ago
    I'm 100% with you. I don't know what's going on exactly, but five years ago it was an example I'd point to of a beautiful, instinctively easy-to-use interface, and today it seems like it never does what I want on the first try. Doesn't matter if it's the web interface or on my Android phone, though I think those are screwed up in different ways.
  - d23 11y ago
    Here's a few more: randomly zooming out to full-earth view, changing the area of my search after I've already zoomed in, crashing all the time on mobile, randomly giving me results halfway across the earth, randomly changing my destination when I zoom in, randomly zooming out to full-state view. These are the obvious ones. There are more subtle UX fumbles too. If I click my house while I'm in my house and click directions, I probably don't want directions to my house. I probably want directions from my house. Edit: Oh! That ridiculous thing it does when my phone vibrates. Someone decided they could detect frustration by using my accelerometer. Now any time I get a text message and am using maps, maps gets insecure and asks me to submit feedback.
  - vbit 11y ago
    I feel uncomfortable using maps these days too. Something about the dynamic moving and bouncing of elements when I'm just moving my mouse makes me insecure. I can't easily figure out where to find things. I've started to use bing more recently.
- mfisher87 11y ago
  On my phone, if I type in the name of a store, it gives me the most popular store of that name in the United States instead of the nearest one, because I have wifi locaiton turned off. That's the only reason. If I turn it back on (I don't want it on), the results are sorted as expected. This is clearly an intentional anti-pattern, and it's been there for over two years. I have to actually type, for example: "Fry's electronics, city, state" (remember, this is on a TOUCH KEYBOARD) to get where I want to go. It shouldn't really be in debate that the UX of maps has gone way downhill. There's simply no comparison to the older version and I've never met anyone who wasn't disappointed by the changes.
  - ryukafalz 11y ago
    >On my phone, if I type in the name of a store, it gives me the most popular store of that name in the United States instead of the nearest one, because I have wifi locaiton turned off. That's the only reason. If I turn it back on (I don't want it on), the results are sorted as expected. I'm assuming you do have GPS location turned on, and that you're allowing location access on that page and waiting for a GPS lock before searching, correct? (And if not, how do you expect it to know where you are?)
    - nandhp 11y ago
      > if not, how do you expect it to know where you are? IP addresses are usually enough to get to the right city.
      - manigandham 11y ago
        Not on mobile carrier Internet, those can appear as very far from where you are
        CamperBob2 11y ago
        They know what cell tower you're connected to, don't they? The original iPhone didn't have a GPS receiver, so this was the only way Maps could infer your location.
- softbuilder 11y ago
  Maybe GMaps is just polarizing software that seems awesome to some people and awful to others? Unless you're a Googler and/or on the Maps team? :) One thing that is absolutely brain-dead is that (in Chrome) I can't type in maps.google.com and tab-search for my address. I can do this with Amazon.com or Netflix, but not an actual Google property? Weird. Another thing that is just bafflingly absent is that GMaps doesn't know where my home and work are. Not just as locations, but as concepts. (Snide part of my brain wonders if the Maps team just lives at work.) Another thing is that to make GMaps work with my Mac, I have to have a Chrome Extension to stop the map from freaking out. And then simple things like double-clicking to zoom in seems to have a non-predictable behavior where sometimes it zooms in and sometimes it tries to put a marker on the map. Not everything in Gmaps is horrible. There are many nice features. But they've allowed the critical path through the software to become obscured and eroded.
  - manigandham 11y ago
    Home/Work are supported, you can easily set them if it doesn't learn on it's own: https://support.google.com/gmm/answer/3273402?hl=en https://support.google.com/gmm/answer/3273402?hl=en Also I'm not sure but it would seem you have some kind of plugin that might be interfering as GMaps is very smooth on Mac Chrome and Safari. And you might be single-clicking on the maps which brings up a gray marker to show you more detail of the nearest address to where you clicked. It's easier to just use the scroll wheel to zoom in/out. And you can just put the address in the search bar and the first result on the results page should be the address detail plus links for directions.
    - terinjokes 11y ago
      I frequently, in Chrome on OSX, get Google Maps in such a state that attempting to interact with the map at all will cause it to "freak out" and randomly zoom or pan somewhere unexpected.
      - ashark 11y ago
        I find it entirely unusable on a Macbook touchpad, and even worse with a magic mouse. Sometimes I forget and go to the site, only to have it freak out on me part way through trying to do whatever I'm doing, while lagging like crazy of course, because at some point Google stopped giving even half a damn about performance, company wide. Google Music kicks on my fan after a while. The only other thing I run that does that is Kerbal Space Program. One simulates space flight with nice (ok, decent) 3d graphics, the other plays f*cking music.
- DanBC 11y ago
  On mobile: Do I press, or do I double tap, or do I long press, or is it in a menu, or is it just not available? I know that tapping will drop a pin, and I don't want to drop a pin, (because there's already a pin from my search and that's in the right place) so I don't want to tap. But tapping is actually what I need to do to get rid of the interface and just leave me with the map. But only after I've done whatever it is I need to do to make the GPS dot active. I'm on a bus. The GPS dot shows me where I am. The pin shows me where my destination is. Maps also shows every bus stop (I complain, but this is one of the things that makes me feel like I'm on StarTrek) but you only get the bus stops if you zoom right in. So, I spend some time zooming in and out. The map images keep loading and unloading. I kind of wish Maps would realise that I need the bus stops. I know there probably isn't a setting for that (because FUCK YOU USER WE KNOW WHAT YOU WANT) so I just keep pinch zooming and unzooming, and hoping I don't miss-pinch and un-drop the pin. Maps is great if you use it often enough to learn it. I use it just often enough to not remember it next time I go to use it. (All maps are amazing. I remember using Autoroute from 5 1/4" floppies and a Hercules graphics adapter and that was amazing, so GMaps on that slab of glass does feel like magic. I moan too much.)
- lnanek2 11y ago
  I have the same problems with modern Maps. Personally, I always type something in maps, weird search cards I don't want at all popup. I click the map which is only a small stripe above the cards to try to get to a map with my placemarkers, then Google Maps forgets my search and hides all the placemarkers. Rinse and repeat several times and eventually Maps gives me my darn map with Placemarkers that I wanted in the first place. I find directions then a whole separate pain in the ass compared to how they used to be as well. Sure, the thing looks better than it used to, but it works terrible.
chris_va 11y ago
https://www.google.com/maps/lite https://www.google.com/maps/lite
- CamperBob2 11y ago
  Hmm. They removed the "Maps Lite" feature awhile back (after threatening to for over a year, as is Google's wont.) Glad to see it's back.
- defen 11y ago
  I tried loading that on my system (latest Firefox, OS X Yosemite) - this is what I get: http://i.imgur.com/8IrwRAF.png http://i.imgur.com/8IrwRAF.png All adblockers turned off, no errors in JS console, no other extensions installed, regular maps works fine.
  - chris_va 11y ago
    (try using the search box)
bsbechtel 11y ago
This is basically the only reason Apple Maps ever had a chance, IMHO.
csomar 11y ago
It become slow and run my macbook pro fans. I have a late-2014 macbook pro and running latest Chrome (46) and yet it is painful to use. I have a very long time since I used it. (I still use Google earth too).
fencepost 11y ago
I've long used Latitude/Location History and it's just been getting worse as well. With the newest incarnation ("Timeline") they've made it prettier while breaking it in unfortunate and non-obvious ways. It's like that person that your tough interview process is designed to weed out - looks good, but when you hire them and put them to work you discover that they can't code, just crib stuff from Stack Overflow and discussion boards. With "Timeline," you dig in and find things that just don't work right like arrival and departure times (if you're going to show me at a location until 1:30PM why when I go in and drag the slider are there further data points bouncing around that location until 3PM?) and filtering of bad location recording (apparently I make several 1-minute trips a night 1 mile over to a corporate office park nearby with a cell tower). The previous version was bad (or at least irksome and clearly designed and tested only by people on 4K monitors or with very odd mouse habits for the in-day timeline), but this one is worse because it SEEMS good until you actually look at the data.
agumonkey 11y ago
Mostly it's indiscoverable. The v2 overhaul shifted everything toward a semantico-geographical google search, except it didn't improve the ergonomics, and even made the software 5x slower. The latest upgrade fixed some stuff but it still feels like a waste compared to the v1. btw, you something is wrong when you go to bing maps and you feel happy because "it" .. works.
Gustomaximus 11y ago
Try Here maps. This is the old Nokia maps now owned by Android. I use this as my go-to for driving. It's much better interface and route selection is as good as Maps. Also I love the GPS speedo and speed warning. I tend to use Maps for location based searches like restaurants for the better reviews.
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  HERE is pretty great. I've been amazed how basic things like a list of recent searches (something that can be easily stored locally on your device) aren't even available on Google Maps if you turn their cloud location stalking off. Whereas HERE provides a pretty functionally useful app without me even having an account with them.
  - Gustomaximus 11y ago
    Maps holds my recent searches. Even shows cross device searches. Perhaps that's cause I have Google Now and/or Chrome sync set-up?
    - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
      It might be tied to some of the search history settings? It's tied to one of the cloud privacy settings. If you turn it off, it doesn't even provide recent searches on the device itself. I want that feature, but that shouldn't entitle Google to have that data on their servers.
asynchronous13 11y ago
You can force maps into lite mode, which seems closer to the old version. https://www.google.com/maps/@?force=lite https://www.google.com/maps/@?force=lite

Maps has really become a chore to use, too. I remember getting directions used to be easy once and now it's like interacting with enterprise software.

by gdulli 11y ago

Maps has really become a chore to use, too. I remember getting directions used to be easy once and now it's like interacting with enterprise software.

icebraining 11y ago

What? If you left-click in a place, a small card appears with an arrow that you can click to get directions. If you right-click, you can get directions from or to the place. And if you search, you also get a very visible round button with an arrow and the label "Directions". How is it hard? EDIT: Sorry if this came out as aggressive. I'm just dumbfounded, that's all.

andyana 11y ago
I have the same complaint. I can't explain how it has changed, but it used to be easy. Now it is difficult and error prone. I guess I just never paid attention to it when it was easy.
- icebraining 11y ago
  But why is it difficult and error prone now? I frankly cannot see it. What steps do you take, and where do you stumble?
  - andyana 11y ago
    I can't run through it right now, but I guess there are simply too many steps to go from address to navigation. It used to be, as best I recall, input address -> click navigate. The error part comes in from making me visually choose from a list of addresses after I have already put in a specific address (search is not needed). The difficult part comes in to play when I am trying to get somewhere and the app is making me navigate through several interactions.
    - icebraining 11y ago
      But you don't need to search. Open maps.google.com, then type the address and click on the arrow; it'll open the two directions input screen with the destination already filled in. Now you can just choose the origin (e.g. click on "my location") and it'll show you the route.
      - d23 11y ago
        This is the problem. You can't argue a user into accepting that their experience is better. You have a whole swath of people saying maps has gotten significantly more cumbersome over the last few years. Telling the user they are wrong and giving them coping strategies to handle the UX awkwardness is just insulting.
        icebraining 11y ago
        I'm not even a Google employee, let alone a Gmail developer, so I don't see how is it insulting. I'm simply explaining why I don't see the problem being reported.
        pcthrowaway 11y ago
        I also have no problem with gmail currently. I suspect only the people with complaints are being vocal here. It's gotten leaps and bounds more useful than it was 4-5 years ago. Transit directions are much easier to use. One of the only things I can complain about is that on mobile, if I've conducted a transit direction search then the results I get are for the given time. If I miss a bus or don't leave until a bit later and want to re-run the search again at the current time (some buses may have stopped running if I get delayed leavng party for example), I have to actually input the time on my phone; there's no way to re-run the search with the current time. It's mind-blowing to me that they wouldn't make it easier to have a transit search use the current time, and instead continue to use a route from anywhere from 15 minutes-3 hours ago. Why would I even be performing the search again if I wanted the same routes.
potatolicious 11y ago
My beef with GMaps is its performance. The UI is for the most part fine (though there some awful blunders that were later fixed). Loading GMaps takes forever now and brings my entire browser to a freezing stop (Chrome OSX) until it's done doing whatever it's doing. This is a modern desktop (i7, 16GB RAM, discrete graphics). Even after it's done "loading" if you try to interact with the map right away it does so at a crawl - inputs take multiple seconds to register and panning/zooming runs at about 2 frames a second. It takes about 10-15 seconds after load for the site to be fully functional and performant. That's insane. Ditto the Satellite view. Yeah, having 3D buildings is pretty cool and all, but the performance is atrocious on even fast, modern machines. If that's the tradeoff I'll take the 2D satellite imagery back please. Overall interacting with GMaps is itself a chore, and it almost entirely comes down to bad performance. This is especially frustrating on mobile if you put the performance of GMaps on iOS next to competitors like Apple Maps - the rendering performance is insanely low even on the most up to date hardware like an iPhone 6s. Beyond performance problems, one thing Google didn't fix until recently was that it was literally impossible to see information on an address/place and nearby transit at the same time. They changed Transit from a persistent overlay that can be toggled to a special view mode itself, which would disable itself the moment you clicked on any point of interest on the map. It makes me wonder if anyone on the Maps team lives in a major city.
- LukeB_UK 11y ago
  Try Lite Mode: https://www.google.com/maps/?force=lite https://www.google.com/maps/?force=lite
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    Too bad they don't tell you about it when your browser hangs.
  - Gmo 11y ago
    THANK YOU ! I so much hate the "new" google maps ... anybody has a alternative ? Somehow, I like the tiles of google maps best :-/
- deleted 11y ago
lmm 11y ago
You used to be able to just click the directions tab and fill in the from and to in the textually-labelled boxes on the left. Now you have to provide it the incantation in the order it wants; in particular you must put the destination in first and then go back and put the start point after. I don't even know if you can do "via" any more, never mind how. And it seems incapable of remembering what mode of transport I want any more.
- icebraining 11y ago
  You don't have to put the destination first: in the search box, there's a directions button, just press it and it'll show both boxes! I'm with you on the "it forgets the transportation mode" complaint, by the way; even Google Now seems incapable of using it, despite being able to parrot back the setting in the config panel.
  - lmm 11y ago
    The magical mystery UI is the worst part, actually. I (evidently) have no idea what the capabilities are, because the input boxes appear and disappear arbitrarily when you do things.
- aninhumer 11y ago
  You can do via, but not for public transport, and indeed it magically hides the add destination button if you're not in one of the modes it supports (including if you're in the auto-mode and it's suggested a public transport route). I can kind of see their reasoning, since public transport is often time dependent, but often I don't care about specifics, I just want to get an idea what links exist, and how long I'm going to spend in transport visiting a bunch of places.
CamperBob2 11y ago
I think part of the problem is that Maps looks different at random times. I just took this screenshot to answer your post: http://i.imgur.com/SaHMCF2.png http://i.imgur.com/SaHMCF2.png Yes, there's a round "Directions" icon. This time. Frequently, searches for a given address don't bring up that icon or any other UI affordance that indicates how I might get directions to the destination. However, Maps does reliably fill half the screen with photos, random chunks of white space, and other irrelevant visual junk as seen in the above screenshot. I had absolutely no idea that Maps had a right-click menu, so thanks for that tip (seriously). Right-clicking on an AJAX-based Web page is obviously not a standard or expected UI concept... but given what Google has done with Maps over the last year or so, literally anything helps.
- icebraining 11y ago
  I can't say I've experienced the lack of a directions button, but I agree that's a major UI failure.
- potatolicious 11y ago
  > "Yes, there's a round "Directions" icon. This time. Frequently, searches for a given address don't bring up that icon or any other UI affordance that indicates how I might get directions to the destination." This is sadly a really common UX failure in a lot of different apps. One thing that many people still don't seem to realize is that it's more important to be consistent than being smart. I like to call these "hide and seek" UI elements - they display conditionally in an effort to be smart (e.g., no directions are available to this place, so we hide the directions button). But in practice it just confuses users. One thing I keep encouraging, to varying levels of success, is that UIs should always be consistent. If you are unable to provide a feature, disable that element with a helpful tip (e.g., graying out the Directions button and say "Directions not available from this address" or some such).
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - coldpie 11y ago
gdulli 11y ago
I'm not a UX expert and don't have the vocabulary to describe what's wrong with it. What I know is that I used to enjoy using it. Not just for directions, but I'd use it for fun to explore new areas. And now I dislike and avoid using it altogether. Similar to Gmail. It's just feels like a mess of UI elements that show and hide and move dynamically, don't have fixed spots on the page, don't work consistently, etc. Like it was excessively focus-grouped or committee-designed. I know how to get directions in the new interface. I just don't like doing it. Is it more clicks? More elements taking up space I don't care about? Hijacking the native right-click menu? Aggressive resizing/panning when I didn't ask for it, to accommodate what it thinks the new context should be? I don't really know.
- colomon 11y ago
  I'm 100% with you. I don't know what's going on exactly, but five years ago it was an example I'd point to of a beautiful, instinctively easy-to-use interface, and today it seems like it never does what I want on the first try. Doesn't matter if it's the web interface or on my Android phone, though I think those are screwed up in different ways.
- d23 11y ago
  Here's a few more: randomly zooming out to full-earth view, changing the area of my search after I've already zoomed in, crashing all the time on mobile, randomly giving me results halfway across the earth, randomly changing my destination when I zoom in, randomly zooming out to full-state view. These are the obvious ones. There are more subtle UX fumbles too. If I click my house while I'm in my house and click directions, I probably don't want directions to my house. I probably want directions from my house. Edit: Oh! That ridiculous thing it does when my phone vibrates. Someone decided they could detect frustration by using my accelerometer. Now any time I get a text message and am using maps, maps gets insecure and asks me to submit feedback.
- vbit 11y ago
  I feel uncomfortable using maps these days too. Something about the dynamic moving and bouncing of elements when I'm just moving my mouse makes me insecure. I can't easily figure out where to find things. I've started to use bing more recently.
mfisher87 11y ago
On my phone, if I type in the name of a store, it gives me the most popular store of that name in the United States instead of the nearest one, because I have wifi locaiton turned off. That's the only reason. If I turn it back on (I don't want it on), the results are sorted as expected. This is clearly an intentional anti-pattern, and it's been there for over two years. I have to actually type, for example: "Fry's electronics, city, state" (remember, this is on a TOUCH KEYBOARD) to get where I want to go. It shouldn't really be in debate that the UX of maps has gone way downhill. There's simply no comparison to the older version and I've never met anyone who wasn't disappointed by the changes.
- ryukafalz 11y ago
  >On my phone, if I type in the name of a store, it gives me the most popular store of that name in the United States instead of the nearest one, because I have wifi locaiton turned off. That's the only reason. If I turn it back on (I don't want it on), the results are sorted as expected. I'm assuming you do have GPS location turned on, and that you're allowing location access on that page and waiting for a GPS lock before searching, correct? (And if not, how do you expect it to know where you are?)
  - nandhp 11y ago
    > if not, how do you expect it to know where you are? IP addresses are usually enough to get to the right city.
    - manigandham 11y ago
      Not on mobile carrier Internet, those can appear as very far from where you are
      - CamperBob2 11y ago
        They know what cell tower you're connected to, don't they? The original iPhone didn't have a GPS receiver, so this was the only way Maps could infer your location.
softbuilder 11y ago
Maybe GMaps is just polarizing software that seems awesome to some people and awful to others? Unless you're a Googler and/or on the Maps team? :) One thing that is absolutely brain-dead is that (in Chrome) I can't type in maps.google.com and tab-search for my address. I can do this with Amazon.com or Netflix, but not an actual Google property? Weird. Another thing that is just bafflingly absent is that GMaps doesn't know where my home and work are. Not just as locations, but as concepts. (Snide part of my brain wonders if the Maps team just lives at work.) Another thing is that to make GMaps work with my Mac, I have to have a Chrome Extension to stop the map from freaking out. And then simple things like double-clicking to zoom in seems to have a non-predictable behavior where sometimes it zooms in and sometimes it tries to put a marker on the map. Not everything in Gmaps is horrible. There are many nice features. But they've allowed the critical path through the software to become obscured and eroded.
- manigandham 11y ago
  Home/Work are supported, you can easily set them if it doesn't learn on it's own: https://support.google.com/gmm/answer/3273402?hl=en https://support.google.com/gmm/answer/3273402?hl=en Also I'm not sure but it would seem you have some kind of plugin that might be interfering as GMaps is very smooth on Mac Chrome and Safari. And you might be single-clicking on the maps which brings up a gray marker to show you more detail of the nearest address to where you clicked. It's easier to just use the scroll wheel to zoom in/out. And you can just put the address in the search bar and the first result on the results page should be the address detail plus links for directions.
  - terinjokes 11y ago
    I frequently, in Chrome on OSX, get Google Maps in such a state that attempting to interact with the map at all will cause it to "freak out" and randomly zoom or pan somewhere unexpected.
    - ashark 11y ago
      I find it entirely unusable on a Macbook touchpad, and even worse with a magic mouse. Sometimes I forget and go to the site, only to have it freak out on me part way through trying to do whatever I'm doing, while lagging like crazy of course, because at some point Google stopped giving even half a damn about performance, company wide. Google Music kicks on my fan after a while. The only other thing I run that does that is Kerbal Space Program. One simulates space flight with nice (ok, decent) 3d graphics, the other plays f*cking music.
DanBC 11y ago
On mobile: Do I press, or do I double tap, or do I long press, or is it in a menu, or is it just not available? I know that tapping will drop a pin, and I don't want to drop a pin, (because there's already a pin from my search and that's in the right place) so I don't want to tap. But tapping is actually what I need to do to get rid of the interface and just leave me with the map. But only after I've done whatever it is I need to do to make the GPS dot active. I'm on a bus. The GPS dot shows me where I am. The pin shows me where my destination is. Maps also shows every bus stop (I complain, but this is one of the things that makes me feel like I'm on StarTrek) but you only get the bus stops if you zoom right in. So, I spend some time zooming in and out. The map images keep loading and unloading. I kind of wish Maps would realise that I need the bus stops. I know there probably isn't a setting for that (because FUCK YOU USER WE KNOW WHAT YOU WANT) so I just keep pinch zooming and unzooming, and hoping I don't miss-pinch and un-drop the pin. Maps is great if you use it often enough to learn it. I use it just often enough to not remember it next time I go to use it. (All maps are amazing. I remember using Autoroute from 5 1/4" floppies and a Hercules graphics adapter and that was amazing, so GMaps on that slab of glass does feel like magic. I moan too much.)
lnanek2 11y ago
I have the same problems with modern Maps. Personally, I always type something in maps, weird search cards I don't want at all popup. I click the map which is only a small stripe above the cards to try to get to a map with my placemarkers, then Google Maps forgets my search and hides all the placemarkers. Rinse and repeat several times and eventually Maps gives me my darn map with Placemarkers that I wanted in the first place. I find directions then a whole separate pain in the ass compared to how they used to be as well. Sure, the thing looks better than it used to, but it works terrible.

chris_va 11y ago

https://www.google.com/maps/lite https://www.google.com/maps/lite

CamperBob2 11y ago
Hmm. They removed the "Maps Lite" feature awhile back (after threatening to for over a year, as is Google's wont.) Glad to see it's back.
defen 11y ago
I tried loading that on my system (latest Firefox, OS X Yosemite) - this is what I get: http://i.imgur.com/8IrwRAF.png http://i.imgur.com/8IrwRAF.png All adblockers turned off, no errors in JS console, no other extensions installed, regular maps works fine.
- chris_va 11y ago
  (try using the search box)

bsbechtel 11y ago

This is basically the only reason Apple Maps ever had a chance, IMHO.

csomar 11y ago

It become slow and run my macbook pro fans. I have a late-2014 macbook pro and running latest Chrome (46) and yet it is painful to use. I have a very long time since I used it. (I still use Google earth too).

fencepost 11y ago

I've long used Latitude/Location History and it's just been getting worse as well. With the newest incarnation ("Timeline") they've made it prettier while breaking it in unfortunate and non-obvious ways. It's like that person that your tough interview process is designed to weed out - looks good, but when you hire them and put them to work you discover that they can't code, just crib stuff from Stack Overflow and discussion boards. With "Timeline," you dig in and find things that just don't work right like arrival and departure times (if you're going to show me at a location until 1:30PM why when I go in and drag the slider are there further data points bouncing around that location until 3PM?) and filtering of bad location recording (apparently I make several 1-minute trips a night 1 mile over to a corporate office park nearby with a cell tower). The previous version was bad (or at least irksome and clearly designed and tested only by people on 4K monitors or with very odd mouse habits for the in-day timeline), but this one is worse because it SEEMS good until you actually look at the data.

agumonkey 11y ago

Mostly it's indiscoverable. The v2 overhaul shifted everything toward a semantico-geographical google search, except it didn't improve the ergonomics, and even made the software 5x slower. The latest upgrade fixed some stuff but it still feels like a waste compared to the v1. btw, you something is wrong when you go to bing maps and you feel happy because "it" .. works.

Gustomaximus 11y ago

Try Here maps. This is the old Nokia maps now owned by Android. I use this as my go-to for driving. It's much better interface and route selection is as good as Maps. Also I love the GPS speedo and speed warning. I tend to use Maps for location based searches like restaurants for the better reviews.

ocdtrekkie 11y ago
HERE is pretty great. I've been amazed how basic things like a list of recent searches (something that can be easily stored locally on your device) aren't even available on Google Maps if you turn their cloud location stalking off. Whereas HERE provides a pretty functionally useful app without me even having an account with them.
- Gustomaximus 11y ago
  Maps holds my recent searches. Even shows cross device searches. Perhaps that's cause I have Google Now and/or Chrome sync set-up?
  - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
    It might be tied to some of the search history settings? It's tied to one of the cloud privacy settings. If you turn it off, it doesn't even provide recent searches on the device itself. I want that feature, but that shouldn't entitle Google to have that data on their servers.

asynchronous13 11y ago

You can force maps into lite mode, which seems closer to the old version. https://www.google.com/maps/@?force=lite https://www.google.com/maps/@?force=lite