Day 2 (part I): UX review of Google Maps for seeing saved places around me now

The most important feature of my ideal map application is its ability to remind me of the places of my own interest around the current location. To restate the user story:

As a traveller,

I want to know the places of my interest around where I am now

so I won’t waste an opportunity to visit the area

For this user story, Google Maps, as of April 2021, does a fairly good job. When tapping the Google Maps icon on the iOS home screen, the map around the current location automatically shows up, with my saved places shown as colorful placemark icons. This is great.

However, other places also show up on the map, presumably those who have paid Google to advertise their shops. Worse, by zooming in and out, Google randomly changes which places to show. It really distracts my attention. I don’t want Google to help me discover a new place.

Also green places, major roads, and water ways are colored in a similar tone to my saved places. These geographical landmarks should recede visually.

Depending on how I feel, however, I don’t necessarily want to know every place of interest around me:

As a traveller who gets thirsty,

I want to see all the cafes of my interest around me, not anything else

so I can quickly decide which cafe to visit

Alternatively:

As a traveller who gets hungry,

I want to see all the restaurants of my interest around me, not anything else

so I can quickly decide which one to visit

This user story can be realized with Google Maps, but doing so is quite tedious. I have to tap the Saved button in the bottom app bar, scroll down to “Your lists”, tap the overflow menu and select “Hide on your map”, and finally tap the Explore button in the bottom app bar to get back to the map view. If I change my mind, I have to go through this process once again. Worse, there is no way to tell which lists are currently hidden.

Once I know all the options around me, I need each place’s information to help me decide which place to actually visit:

As a traveller

I want to remind myself of why I am interested in each of the places around me

so I can judge whether I want to visit it now.

It’s also important to learn about opening hours (or whether the place is closed permanently or temporarily):

As a traveller

I want to check if each of the places of my interest currently around me opens right now

so I won’t waste time visiting a closed place

With Google Maps, tapping the saved place icon on the map reveals Google’s own information about the place, which includes the opening hours. That’s usually accurate, but not necessarily.

A screen shot of Google Maps on iOS (version 5.58) This bakery/patisserie actually opens at 9:00am since last November (according to its website), not at 7:00am as Google says.

So I want to quickly visit the place’s website where they keep their opening hours updated (which may not be the same as the “Website” that Google links to).

So seeing my own note is all the more important. But I have to swipe up the location info pane to reveal my own note. And by default up to two lines of text are shown. To see the full note, I need to tap the expand icon.

Screenshots of Google Maps on iOS (version 5.58). Left: after swiping up the place info panel in the previous screen. Right: after tapping the down arrow next to “Saved in Want to go”, to expand the user’s own note about the place.

The note itself is very rudimentary. It accepts plain text only. No formatting is allowed, let alone text links. I want my note to contain a text link to a web article that introduced me to the place or to a note about the place that I’ve written (possibly with lots of pictures or links to videos) in my note-taking app like Evernote or Notion. (Once tapping the link, the linked page should appear in the user’s default browser, not the one inside the app as is very often the case with every single app that I’m aware of, which is pretty much annoying because I cannot visit the page again from the default browser.)

Once I’ve decided to visit one of these places…

As a traveller

I want to know how to get there

so I can quickly arrive to the place of my interest.

Google Maps is excellent in realizing this user story. The DIRECTIONS icon is very conspicuous. Tapping it immediately tells how to get there from my current location.

Any map app should have a button link to this feature of Google Maps.

Summary

So My Ideal Map App should have the following features in response to User Story #1

1. By default, the map around the current location is shown with the user’s saved places nearby (just as Google Maps does)
2. Other landmarks visually recede, either by being grayed out or by being in a different tone of color from the one for the user’s saved places.
3. The user can easily select which types of saved places are shown on the map (e.g. cafes only, lunch restaurants only, etc.).
4. Once tapping the saved place icon on the map, the user’s own note for the place is clearly shown without any extra user interactions.
5. The user’s own note can act as a hyperlink if a URL is included.
6. Tapping this hyperlink launches the browser externally, not the one embedded into the app.
7. Google-provided information on the place’s opening hours is also shown.
8. There is a button to jump to Google Maps which shows how to get to the saved place from the current location.