Earlier quoted context omitted.
(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!
There are so many other ways to present what you are presenting that writing the idea off seems silly. With some tweaking I think that idea could work -- if the text were in a faint gray, for example, so that it wasn't so contrasting. Probably want to do away with the bright red dots, too. Subtlety...
I absolutely 100% didn't write off the idea of putting more labels. I wasn't making a point about how bad it would be. I was doing something different.
I read a comment, this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18359646 - which I replied to. First I'll quote it in full then we'll break it down.
>It's obviously an intentional choice to avoid too much screen clutter...
>but I agree it's infuriating. I've spoken in the past with some people who work on Maps products and have heard "people say they want it but then they really don't..." and I honestly can't imagine what UX studies are telling them that.
>All the time I see a destination and I'm trying to figure out what closest cross street I should stop at and by the time I've zoomed and panned enough to find whatever random faraway place manages to have a label (feels like an unwanted game of whack-a-mole, where will the label pop up??), I can't tell if I've zoomed over to a parallel street instead.
>And the solution is so simple too: 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.
So let's break it down. First of all this person says that the REASON for this is to "AVOID CLUTTER". They then "I honestly can't imagine what UX studies are telling them that." So I did one! You're looking at a UX study that might tell them that.
We actually have a null hypothesis:
>I've spoken in the past with some people who work on Maps products and have heard "people say they want it but then they really don't..."
We have something to test. What we have to test is whether it's true that people REALLY DON'T want that.
We have a problem that we're UX testing. The problem is "I see a destination and I'm trying to figure out what closest cross street I should stop at and by the time I've zoomed and panned enough to find whatever random faraway place manages to have a label (feels like an unwanted game of whack-a-mole, where will the label pop up??), I can't tell if I've zoomed over to a parallel street instead." This is a clear problem that we can easily and specifically test.
And here is EXACTLY what we are testing:
>"And the solution is so simple too: whenever you zoom in enough that there's enough room on a visible street to put a label, then put the label!"
That says that the solution is SO SIMPLE. We are looking at the simplest possible solution. One that requires (ALMOST) NO ALGORITHMIC CHOICE ABOUT WHEN AND WHERE TO DISPLAY A STREET NAME!! This is given very simply and super-specifically: "WHENEVER THERE IS ROOM TO PUT A LABEL THEN PUT THE LABEL". This is what we're testing.
It wasn't my idea to keep it in black (instead of grey). It's there in black and white: "THE SOLUTION IS SO SIMPLE." And then it's a FULLY SPECIFIED SOLUTION.
So we have this:
* I can't imagine what UX study could POSSIBLY have had the result that people don't REALLY want it!
* All you need to do is this: WHENEVER there is room to put a label, put a label!
It doesn't say "On at least one point point on the road". It doesn't say somewhere. It says whenever. We're testing this.
The results of MY test is that for ME, I don't see that I don't REALLY want even this version of the UX. I think it's 100% readable and not too cluttered for me. I would turn on this form of navigation. It's extremely easy for me to read. It's an improvement. (Over these examples given just now by someone else: https://imgur.com/a/hCo3V2X )
So the WORST POSSIBLE way to test this UX still doesn't show us the result that I wanted, that people "DON'T REALLY WANT IT". However, it does show a bad way to test this UX change. So if you couldn't imagine a UX study that had this result before, well, now you can imagine it.
The option of putting the street name in very light grey and to make the red dots less intrusive is pretty "obvious". But it's not necessary for testing what I quoted.
I didn't test something DIFFERENT from what was quoted. I tested the worst possible clutter effect of interpreting the words "WHENEVER THERE IS ROOM TO PUT A LABEL, THEN PUT THE LABEL."
I didn't find the effect that was claimed. It seems fine to me, and seems like a UX improvement. Anyway, even if you all viscerally react very negatively to the mockup, at least now you can "imagine what UX study" might have told people that.