6 ms·

>Whenever you zoom in enough that there's enough room on a visible street to put a label, then put the label! I mean if I zoom in so far that only the one stree

by fouc 8y ago

>Whenever you zoom in enough that there's enough room on a visible street to put a label, then put the label! I mean if I zoom in so far that only the one street is visible and there's no other text on it, but Maps still leaves it blank... it just feels inexcusable. Agreed. Happens on google maps too, and that's just so irritating

logicallee 8y ago
someone else said that according to a Google engineer we don't "really" want it and I wanted to see if this is true. I put in a random street (mission street in San Fransciso), this how it looked for me on desktop: https://imgur.com/a/aOERdLR https://imgur.com/a/aOERdLR Then I started filling out streets with the continuous name of the street (first copy and pasting the name in small squares, then by hand adding red dots to separate them). This is how it looked after: https://imgur.com/a/xQiF6pm https://imgur.com/a/xQiF6pm I was pretty careless/moved quickly, but that should match some of the effect of imperfect algorithmic mapping decisions. The key insight is that even if one specific crook looks horid (not enough space to lay it out neatly), humans will just look at another part of the street to determine the name. But if it's really a little nook where the crooked letters don't contain enough information we'll pinch/zoom in to make it big enough to display legibly. If you really look closely at my picture you will see places where I totally garbled street names through careless copy and pasting and overlap. No problem at all. The "after" is much more beautiful/useful. But notice two streets are blank: https://imgur.com/a/I24REM0 https://imgur.com/a/I24REM0 This is because their name didn't appear even a single time in my view. that means even though I'm on desktop and there's plenty of space, I would have to zoom or scroll to see them! They're literally information that is missing from the map. For other streets I had to look a fair way away to copy and paste, since the street name wasn't anywhere near where I was working. (For example, looking at my first, original map, suppose you're at the top-left point, on Jersey street: how long do you go down Jersey street to the right, before you hit the Jersey and Church street intersection? This is a super common question!) I think the resulting map is extremely repetitive, but pretty useful/beautiful. Humans can filter out repetitive information really easily. It's just no problem for us at all. Tasks such as the one I mentioned, where you are about to go down Jersey street and need to know when you'll hit Church street, are some of the main types of navigation tasks we do every day. So I don't see the issue with making the repetitive map. Instead of roads, it should just repeat the name of the road. (On the other hand, those of you who disagree can at least see what the Google engineer was talking about.)
- jefftk 8y ago
  I can't tell whether you're getting serious, but I'm pretty sure most users would not prefer your change. It's so dense it's hard to read, and in a repetitive way.
  - logicallee 8y ago
    (Yes, totally serious.) For me, it's not hard to read. I'd prefer it, anyway. Still, if you wouldn't prefer it then we can see what the Google engineer meant, as this is exactly what you get if you show as much information as possible!
    - jjeaff 8y ago
      I'm confused, are you only talking about apple maps? I just checked on Google maps and I can easily see all the street names on my screen, as long as I zoom in far enough that there is enough space.
      - logicallee 8y ago
        I was specifically exploring this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18359646 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18359646 I wanted to see how it would look if "whenever you zoom in enough that there's enough room on a visible street to put a label, then put the label!" I think my render looks absolutely fine. I don't see why I wouldn't always use it if I had a toggle switch. Yes it's cluttered if you just glance at it, but we don't use maps as pieces of minimalist art.
        blueski 8y ago
        I dislike it because it slows my consumption of the map; annoying while walking, possibly dangerous while driving. We're all accustomed to reading lines of text in their entirety, which results in endless repetition here. Training the eye to look only between one set of red dots may be possible, but I doubt it would ever be as effortless as reading a discrete word with whitespace around it. I do agree every road should be labeled when there's space - perhaps even at regular intervals when there's space, but making the labeling continuous is counterproductive. Apart from being easy to consume, the map tiles must also be in sync with the company's brand and design ethos. Its hard to imagine Apple's minimalist aesthetic delivering these tiles.
gitgud 8y ago
Really? Google Maps works pretty well on Android, [1] when you zoom in, street names pop up where possible... [1] https://i.imgur.com/c1Mtj57.png https://i.imgur.com/c1Mtj57.png
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Sometimes they do. I second this entire complaining thread; Google Maps really bad as a map. It only works well as a search results display and navigation frontend.
  - tomaskafka 8y ago
    That's what Google maps are - they only care about places where you spend dollars (good luck finding eg. kid playgrounds). Here's an app of a company I worked for, that cares about non-shopping use cases: https://windymaps.com/app https://windymaps.com/app
    - onemoresoop 8y ago
      I wonder if this done on purpose or ignored for the reasons you just mentioned
- Sean1708 8y ago
  Except when they dont (image shamelessly stolen from et-al): https://imgur.com/a/hCo3V2X https://imgur.com/a/hCo3V2X Maybe they would appear if you zoomed in even further, but at that point the map would be pretty useless.
  - gitgud 8y ago
    So strange... What kind of unpredictable algorithm is this!

by fouc 8y ago

logicallee 8y ago

someone else said that according to a Google engineer we don't "really" want it and I wanted to see if this is true. I put in a random street (mission street in San Fransciso), this how it looked for me on desktop: https://imgur.com/a/aOERdLR https://imgur.com/a/aOERdLR Then I started filling out streets with the continuous name of the street (first copy and pasting the name in small squares, then by hand adding red dots to separate them). This is how it looked after: https://imgur.com/a/xQiF6pm https://imgur.com/a/xQiF6pm I was pretty careless/moved quickly, but that should match some of the effect of imperfect algorithmic mapping decisions. The key insight is that even if one specific crook looks horid (not enough space to lay it out neatly), humans will just look at another part of the street to determine the name. But if it's really a little nook where the crooked letters don't contain enough information we'll pinch/zoom in to make it big enough to display legibly. If you really look closely at my picture you will see places where I totally garbled street names through careless copy and pasting and overlap. No problem at all. The "after" is much more beautiful/useful. But notice two streets are blank: https://imgur.com/a/I24REM0 https://imgur.com/a/I24REM0 This is because their name didn't appear even a single time in my view. that means even though I'm on desktop and there's plenty of space, I would have to zoom or scroll to see them! They're literally information that is missing from the map. For other streets I had to look a fair way away to copy and paste, since the street name wasn't anywhere near where I was working. (For example, looking at my first, original map, suppose you're at the top-left point, on Jersey street: how long do you go down Jersey street to the right, before you hit the Jersey and Church street intersection? This is a super common question!) I think the resulting map is extremely repetitive, but pretty useful/beautiful. Humans can filter out repetitive information really easily. It's just no problem for us at all. Tasks such as the one I mentioned, where you are about to go down Jersey street and need to know when you'll hit Church street, are some of the main types of navigation tasks we do every day. So I don't see the issue with making the repetitive map. Instead of roads, it should just repeat the name of the road. (On the other hand, those of you who disagree can at least see what the Google engineer was talking about.)

jefftk 8y ago
I can't tell whether you're getting serious, but I'm pretty sure most users would not prefer your change. It's so dense it's hard to read, and in a repetitive way.
- logicallee 8y ago
  (Yes, totally serious.) For me, it's not hard to read. I'd prefer it, anyway. Still, if you wouldn't prefer it then we can see what the Google engineer meant, as this is exactly what you get if you show as much information as possible!
  - jjeaff 8y ago
    I'm confused, are you only talking about apple maps? I just checked on Google maps and I can easily see all the street names on my screen, as long as I zoom in far enough that there is enough space.
    - logicallee 8y ago
      I was specifically exploring this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18359646 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18359646 I wanted to see how it would look if "whenever you zoom in enough that there's enough room on a visible street to put a label, then put the label!" I think my render looks absolutely fine. I don't see why I wouldn't always use it if I had a toggle switch. Yes it's cluttered if you just glance at it, but we don't use maps as pieces of minimalist art.
      - blueski 8y ago
        I dislike it because it slows my consumption of the map; annoying while walking, possibly dangerous while driving. We're all accustomed to reading lines of text in their entirety, which results in endless repetition here. Training the eye to look only between one set of red dots may be possible, but I doubt it would ever be as effortless as reading a discrete word with whitespace around it. I do agree every road should be labeled when there's space - perhaps even at regular intervals when there's space, but making the labeling continuous is counterproductive. Apart from being easy to consume, the map tiles must also be in sync with the company's brand and design ethos. Its hard to imagine Apple's minimalist aesthetic delivering these tiles.

gitgud 8y ago

Really? Google Maps works pretty well on Android, [1] when you zoom in, street names pop up where possible... [1] https://i.imgur.com/c1Mtj57.png https://i.imgur.com/c1Mtj57.png

TeMPOraL 8y ago
Sometimes they do. I second this entire complaining thread; Google Maps really bad as a map. It only works well as a search results display and navigation frontend.
- tomaskafka 8y ago
  That's what Google maps are - they only care about places where you spend dollars (good luck finding eg. kid playgrounds). Here's an app of a company I worked for, that cares about non-shopping use cases: https://windymaps.com/app https://windymaps.com/app
  - onemoresoop 8y ago
    I wonder if this done on purpose or ignored for the reasons you just mentioned
Sean1708 8y ago
Except when they dont (image shamelessly stolen from et-al): https://imgur.com/a/hCo3V2X https://imgur.com/a/hCo3V2X Maybe they would appear if you zoomed in even further, but at that point the map would be pretty useless.
- gitgud 8y ago
  So strange... What kind of unpredictable algorithm is this!