The design details of the iOS version of Google Maps

Today's users are becoming more and more demanding on maps, and more and more emotionally involved. The writer Sacha Greif, a designer from Paris, France, when everyone still praises the map data and service functions of the iOS version of Google Maps, he commits the occupational disease of the designer and counts the design of Google Maps. Yesterday, someone said good-bye to the Apple map, and today Sacha is like a son-in-law evaluation of the iOS version of Google Maps.

Speaking of the Apple map, because of the lack of public transport navigation, for the Sacha without cars, this is simply unacceptable, and therefore Sacha has not upgraded iOS 6.

In any case, evaluating a map application requires at least that it meets the needs of our traffic navigation.

And when Google Maps released the iOS version, Sacha experienced the app on the iphone and said that the iOS version of Google Maps was very impressive in design.

Google Style

In UI design, "Google style" is a seed style in graphic design. In this design style, everything is white or light gray, and the icon does not have a text label.

In fact, Sacha does not respect this style (his sense is that Google reader uses this style, the experience is bad) but he felt that this style is very suitable for mobile applications, especially for map applications.

A white-toned UI, unlike the experience on a Web page, does not feel like an empty interface at any time, thus avoiding the user's subconscious misconception that the map has stopped loading.

In addition, the iOS version of Google Maps, using color contacts, so that users can visually integrate these elements together.

Incidentally, if you want to evaluate the design of Google style, we can refer to the works that Haraldur Thorleifsson designed for each of Google's projects.

Sacha that. So far, no Google apps have been found to be able to fully match the original creation concept after the completion of the production. But obviously, Google Maps has definitely chosen the right direction and taken a big step ahead.

Label orientation

The author writes in the original text that the Google Map supports the user to rotate the map with two finger gestures. And Sacha stressed that one of the details of the appreciation, that is, the label will not rotate with the map itself, still maintain a relative level of position, the user read information more convenient.

In fact, the details of label orientation are preserved in many map applications. Therefore, the author's emphasis on this detail is difficult to understand. )

And such a design always brings some problems, such as two tags will "encounter", causing each other to cover, so that one of the tags hidden away. But the tag positioning feature does help to help the user in the right direction by rotating the map.

Side Menu

Google Maps has a side menu (also known as "basemen" menus, sidebar) itself has the effect of scaling, in the eyes of users, such a menu design is more cordial, open its method easier for users to operate.

The way the UI uses transitions to show that this is a simple and delicate effect that minimizes the impact of interaction during the process of conveying information.

"Shake and shake" feedback mechanism

Sacha believes that an application should be able to take into account the user's disappointment in advance, and timely feedback.

Google Maps, when users shake the iphone, can activate a feedback mechanism. However, not everyone can easily find this dialog box, because the activation of the process must be hard to shake the iphone, for the average user, it is more difficult to use.

Even so, this setting of Google Maps still makes people feel very satisfied. You can imagine that if the setting is very sensitive to this shaking function, it makes it too easy to trigger it, so it's easy to make a false activation.

To develop an application, we need to think about how to tell the machine exactly what we expect in the first step.

Vertical/Horizontal Transitions

In the beginning, the iphone uses the concept of horizontal navigation, and there is always extra space on the left or right side of the screen.

This design has become so entrenched in the minds of designers.

This kind of situation lets the most designers all ignore, the user's map is displays in the two-dimensional space.

In Google Maps, users can get the route information from the order of the Top-down, as shown in the same way when they look at more road-point details.

This dual-axis design is very practical: the left and right axes make it easy to switch between screens, while the upper and lower axes can display additional information in one screen.

Conclusion

Google maps in general is a very good application, this is not only to say that its function, but also because it shows a new style of design concept, and the success of its concrete performance. If everyone has ever felt the extreme realism of Apple and the minimalism that Microsoft is now showing, we now see that Google is also starting to shape its own style, and that this style is more obvious in the iOS version, and that Google has found its voice.

PostScript: Although the author is engaged in design work, but also learned to program. I have studied Chinese in Guangzhou, worked in Beijing and now live in Japan. Because in China, map application to the function of the satisfaction need to consider more, feel he is a understand Google Maps in China need to consider not only the design problems of foreigners, so tried to contact him, but still did not reply.

Via:sachagreif

Article source: Lei Feng Net