Google Map Mobile, Reality is something different (Research)

3 min readJan 4, 2020

As a regular user of Google maps mobile, I noticed some repetitive elements that give the same behavior and the use of affordance in some areas and some not. Had a question whether these are done purposely ? Are the users aware of these?

Is it done purposely ? So thought of gather some data from different users to verify that I’m having a valid question. While they answer the survey I wanted to create awareness of some areas if they did not know those areas early.

How is this data collected ?

Created a simple Google Survey with screen shots (Link for survey)
Shared among friends and LinkedIn.

What I mainly focused…

When a user wants to travel from one location to another destination and when using the mobile Google maps,

(below points will be easy to understand when you go through the article with screenshots)

Frequency of usage of Google maps on mobile
How users find there destination at the first point ?
When users get the direction, what’s the main thing they want to do?
Affordance that used impact the users or not
Navigation guide bar is useful or not? Users awareness that navigation guide bar can be swiped, why affordance is not used here?
People are aware of taxi booking from google maps?

Received 65 Responses from different countries

Frequency of using Google maps on mobile

(From here onwards figures are based on the total responses I got )

How users find there destination at the first point ?

82.8% users type on the search bar directly when they want to get direction from Google maps and 17.2% users first click on the GO button and then type the destination.

Also 60% users realize about the “GO” button only after this survey.

What happens next, when users get the Directions ?

83.1% users, Start the navigation to go through there directions and 16.9% users stick to the below screen for direction.

According to some comments from users, start button navigation they use when they are driving.

Affordance not used in some sections, but when its used its impact

We got almost same behavior for navigating to the screen of ‘navigation steps screen’ (this is not the mode of travel walking tab, refer below screen) using the slide up and clicking on the “Step” button. Usage of affordance is effective.