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Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

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Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

#111

Post by Amadiro »

Pacabel wrote: post #43
runn1ng wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was with you until you started to hate on Chrome GUI. In my opinion, Chrome's GUI is the best thing that could happen to browsers.

It depends on who you are, and how you use the browser. Maybe the Chrome UI is good for somebody with a tiny screen and a near-complete lack of technical ability. But for people with large monitors and the need to push a web browser hard, they've merely managed to strip out or hide a lot of very useful functionality, with essentially no benefit. What's left over is non-standard and awkward to use (like Chrome's menu)…

I use chromium with a 5760*1080 resolution, and I frequently have > 150 tabs open across 3 browser windows, and I really have no complaints. I also occasionally peruse or develop WebGL/ASM.js/emscripten applications, so I suppose I fit into your description as someone who is "pushing the web browser hard".

All functionality I need to access quickly is accessible through shortcuts, so I don't typically need to access the "hamburger-menu" very often. The only thing I really use it for is to open the settings tab.

Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

#112

Post by Crito »

Pacabel wrote: post #78
leemcalilly wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your argument, but there's no need to go in with the "hipsters" or "looking trendy" thing. I immediately get turned off when someone uses "hipster" pejoratively. You might as well have just used "millenials" or "kids these day." It ruins a perfectly cogent argument.

Like I said in an earlier comment, age has very little to do with this. "Hipsters" can pretty much be any age. It's more the "hipster" mindset and attitude that's the problem. This attitude involves fashion and trends trumping all other considerations. Maybe that's okay when it comes to something like clothing. It isn't acceptable, however, when it comes to tools that are supposed to be productive, including software…

In this case, I think that I would define "hipster" as "thinks they are the second coming of Steve Jobs." They're basically cargo culting, they saw Steve Jobs stir shit up, so they think that if they stir shit up as well, the world will hail them as geniuses and shower them with riches. The problem is that they give little thought to exactly what they are stirring up, or how they are doing it. Inevitably they just make a hash of everything.

Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

#113

Post by dragonwriter »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #83
judk wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> somebody with a tiny screen and a near-complete lack of technical ability The vast majority of users.

And that continuous pandering to them is what will bring the downfall of the information age. We are dumbing down our technology, where we should be forcing people to get smarter instead. But unfortunately, dumber is always easier to sell. I fear that, as the world depends more and more on technology (and people actually thinking straight), this feedback loop of progressing idiocy might one day undo us.

> And that continuous pandering to them is what will bring the downfall of the information age. We are dumbing down our technology, where we should be forcing people to get smarter instead.

Changing humanity on the kind of broad scale that requires is a much broader and longer term project than any commercial entity could survive in the short term if its commercial success relied on it.

Its certainly the kind of thing I can see Google being interested in, but not the kind of thing they would be around long enough to do if they didn't have a business strategy that did better at reaching the masses of people that actually exist now as they are than that could ever do.

Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

#115

Post by Crito »

dragonwriter wrote: post #109
joel_perl_prog wrote: post #6

Is this where we get to complain about how horrible Google Maps suddenly is? Because wow. I can speak about this. It's terrible. First and foremost, and they have their "reasons" of course, but my Samsung Rant (yeah just a feature phone) always had great maps. Just a simple Java app, built on the maps API. Well that doesn't work anymore. Like, nothing. Google basically says "Get an Android phone, sucker." F U Google.…

> Secondly, the desktop (and basically the tablet experience too is the same) has gotten terrible. It takes a really long time before my mouse event matters. By this time, the screen, since it's still resolving and moving things around the canvas or whatever the hell it's doing, well by the time my mouse event registers, the object I wanted has moved away. I'm now doing something else! Even though it does more, I've…

The other day I was comparing which cities had which fast food restaurants, and how many. I zoomed in to Philadelphia and searched for "Wendies" (yes, misspelled). I suddenly found myself looking at the address of an unrelated store in Trenton, NJ. I tried it again, and it worked as expected.

I don't know what they have done to the search in maps, but that sort of thing has been happening to me frequently these days with that product. It is almost never consistent, perhaps relying on the exact zoom and position, or perhaps correcting itself when correct results hit the cache.. I don't really know. It's inconsistency makes me think that I am losing my mind sometimes. What I am sure of is that something is rotten in the state of Google Maps.

Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

#116

Post by k0 »

Pacabel wrote: post #27
joel_perl_prog wrote: post #6

Is this where we get to complain about how horrible Google Maps suddenly is? Because wow. I can speak about this. It's terrible. First and foremost, and they have their "reasons" of course, but my Samsung Rant (yeah just a feature phone) always had great maps. Just a simple Java app, built on the maps API. Well that doesn't work anymore. Like, nothing. Google basically says "Get an Android phone, sucker." F U Google.…

What you're saying is absolutely correct. I actually had to use Bing Maps today to look up some directions because the new version of Google Maps was pretty much unusable. As for why UX disasters like this can happen, I think it generally comes down to one thing these days: "hipsters". Those of us who've been in industry for a long time have no doubt seen this happen before. A relatively well-established product has…

+1 for Bing maps [shudders]. I tried yahoo maps and it is nearly as crappy as the new google maps...hell, Apple maps is superior to the new google maps...and I didn't see that coming.

Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

#117

Post by girvo »

Pacabel wrote: post #78
leemcalilly wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your argument, but there's no need to go in with the "hipsters" or "looking trendy" thing. I immediately get turned off when someone uses "hipster" pejoratively. You might as well have just used "millenials" or "kids these day." It ruins a perfectly cogent argument.

Like I said in an earlier comment, age has very little to do with this. "Hipsters" can pretty much be any age. It's more the "hipster" mindset and attitude that's the problem. This attitude involves fashion and trends trumping all other considerations. Maybe that's okay when it comes to something like clothing. It isn't acceptable, however, when it comes to tools that are supposed to be productive, including software…

How about instead of using a crappy word that attempts to tar a nebulous ill-defined group of people, you just point out the issues you have with it. No need for the "hipster" straw-man, as far as I'm concerned, and I agree with your points. "Hipster" is over-done, and from where I'm sitting those who use it pejoratively come across as elitist.

Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

#118

Post by Crito »

DanBC wrote: post #54
greggman wrote: post #18

100 times YES! I've gotten this behavior for years and it drives me nuts because I can't understand how it's not fixed? I remember in 2009 I was driving down from SF to LA. I stopped in Santa Barbara. I needed my bearings and I didn't not know the address or the name of the street I was on but I did see an Albertson's supermarket about 200 feet away so I searched for Albertsons and Google gives me some place in Texas…

A lot of Google changes end up making me feel really dumb. I have no idea how to create a link to what I'm looking at in Google Maps (app on iPhone). I don't know how many inscrutable buttons I am expected to click to discover this. There's a bunch of stuff with email that I needed to do a websearch to get instructions. Very very frustrating.

> I have no idea how to create a link to what I'm looking at in Google Maps (app on iPhone).

I voiced this complaint about the new desktop/browser version of google maps on here a few months ago. FWIW, apparently the permalink functionality has been removed because the address bar is now updated on the fly, so whatever is in the address bar is now always your permalink. This of course is not communicated to the user anywhere that I can see.

I don't know if this helps you on iOS or not.

Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

#119

Post by runn1ng »

Pacabel wrote: post #43
runn1ng wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was with you until you started to hate on Chrome GUI. In my opinion, Chrome's GUI is the best thing that could happen to browsers.

It depends on who you are, and how you use the browser. Maybe the Chrome UI is good for somebody with a tiny screen and a near-complete lack of technical ability. But for people with large monitors and the need to push a web browser hard, they've merely managed to strip out or hide a lot of very useful functionality, with essentially no benefit. What's left over is non-standard and awkward to use (like Chrome's menu)…

I disagree.

I mostly use web browser for browsing. Not for staying in this on that setup menu, not for looking at tabs and windows.

Chrome managed to move the bloat away and move the important thing to front.

I don't really see the parallel with the new Google Maps.

Re: Google Maps Has Forsaken Us

#120

Post by chrisrhoden »

Pacabel wrote: post #35
chrisrhoden wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, in other words, kids these days?

No, not at all. It isn't really about age. I've dealt with "hipsters" in their 40s and 50s who've come up with very bad UI designs. Likewise, many of the managers or executives advocating for these redesigns are in their 30s, 40s or even 50s. While it may be more of an issue with younger people due to a greater lack of experience and intuition, it's a phenomenon that's quite independent of age.

"Kids these days" is rarely strictly about age.

It's usually about a class of people who have helped to design the systems we have at present and who are therefore heavily invested in those systems in a variety of ways reacting negatively to a class of people attempting to help design new systems that they will one day defend due to their investment in them.

The idea that UX was better in the 1980s kind of gives you away here.

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