Google Maps micro-mobility

Planning a biking or scooting ride that is safe and fun with minimal effort.

Problem

Although the cycling industry is proliferating in the U.S., it is very difficult and cumbersome for people to plan routes that are suitable for biking and scooting, creating a decrease in safety and enjoyment for users. Google Maps is intended to be the single destination for transportation navigation, including micro-mobility. However, currently, there are too many gaps for people to use this as their primary navigation tool.

Objective

Integrate micro-mobility features into the existing Google Maps design system that allows users to effortlessly plan their cycling and scooting trips.


Discovery research

Research goals

  1. Understand how micro-mobility fits into users’ lifestyles

  2. Learn if there are triggering events that would cause users to need to plan a route and/ or use navigation while riding.

  3. Determine what information users care about when selecting a route.

  4. Determine what navigation information is needed while riding

Audit & Competitor analysis

I conducted an audit of Google maps as well as did competitor analysis for 3 alternate apps that people use to plan micro-mobility trips.

I found that Google Maps has a big advantage in its brand recognition but is severely lacking in features crucial to planning and navigating while on a scooter or bike. If Google Maps chooses not to fill these gaps, users may defect to another product that will.

User research study

I conducted seven 1:1 interviews with participants who had experience with biking or scooting in an urban environment. The main questions I was trying to answer with this study were:

  1. What are the reasons that users choose to ride versus another means of transportation?

  2. What would cause a user to need to plan a route or use navigation support while riding?

  3. When and how do people choose a service to plan or navigate their rides?

  4. What would make them choose to use this service and not another?

  5. When did they ride in an unfamiliar environment? What was that like?

The study uncovered three major user problems with using Google Maps for micro-mobility trips:

  1. Riding route recommendation not trustworthy

  2. Unclear riding infrastructure data

  3. Lack of traffic data from riding POV (both pedestrians and cars)

Research Synthesis

User Persona

User Point of View & How Might We?

Defining Solutions

Ideation

I conducted multiple rounds of ideation to uncover the best ideas that could solve the user problems identified. From there, I developed prioritization criteria to narrow in on the target solution.

Ideation Prioritization Matrix

Prioritization criteria

  • How deeply does this idea solve the core customer problem?

  • How much effort is this idea?

Feature Roadmap

IA & Interaction Design

User Flow

I created end-to-end user flow to make sure that I was thinking through all of the interactions for the key features.

Sketches

I started with paper sketching, which allowed me to do several rounds of quick feedback with users before increasing the fidelity of the designs.

Search Screen

View directions quick link from the search results

Route Road Type

Road type details in context of the route

Suggested Routes

Clear route suggestions, color-coded road type, safety, and skill rating

Skill Level

Skill levels in context of the route

Trip Option Filters

Additional trip options such as busy roads, steep hills, high crowd density

Wireframes

I digitized my sketches into wireframes, which brought them to life and allowed me to get more detailed feedback on the interaction design from participants. Based on user feedback (noted below), I simplified my designs by narrowly focusing on the map view interactions. This is where users spend the majority of their time to get glanceable guidance on the route.

Suggested Routes

Users loved the color coded road types but wanted to see a legend without leaving the map view

Trip Option Filters

There was a mixed response from users if they would use these filters, mainly due to not trusting the data

Route Road Types

Users felt if there is a legend on the map, this pop up wouldn’t be needed

Route Skill Level

Users liked having the skill level information accessible from the map view

Route Detail View

Users thought that this view was nice to have but that they would rarely use it

Visual Design

Leveraging the user feedback from the wireframe usability testing, I focused my energy on improving the following features in the visual design:

  • Adding a FTU feature discovery tooltip

  • Adding road type legend to the map view

  • Refining route details interactions to emulate Google Map’s existing paradigm

  • Provide ability to view elevation graph within the context of the map view

  • Add grade graph to better clarify how steep the hills are on the route

Safest Route

First time use tool tip added to invite user to tap on selected route to bring up additional route details

Hill View

Elevation graph available from the context of the map view

Grade View

Grade view added to help user visualize how steep the hills are

Easiest Route

Road type legend to clarify what each color coded road means

User Testing

Once I completed the visual design, I created a prototype and conducted user testing to determine whether my design solved the key user problems that I identified. I found that users loved the concept, although they had some feedback that helped me improve the design's usability.

Testing Goals

  1. Test if the new micro-mobility features raised or lowered the user’s confidence in Google Maps.

  2. Understand if the designs felt intuitive to the user.

Metrics

I developed four key indicators to determine the success of the testing:

  1. Effectiveness - Objectively measured by task completion rate

  2. Efficiency - Subjectively measured by participant survey: ask the participant if the tasks were easy, medium, or challenging to complete overall, and why

  3. Satisfaction - Subjectively measured by participant survey: ask the participant to rate their agreement with the statement “I am satisfied with the user experience” (strongly agree, agree, not sure, disagree, strongly disagree) and why

  4. Usefulness - Subjectively measured by participant survey: ask the user to rate their agreement with the statement “Google Maps would make it easier to plan my next ride”(strongly agree, agree, not sure, disagree, strongly disagree) and why 

Format & Participants

The testing format was remote 1:1 user interviews. I conducted these interviews with five participants, ranging in age from mid-20s to mid-60s. All of the participants have previous experience using a bike or scooter to get around a town or city.

User Feedback

Participants were able to complete all the tasks easily, however there were elements of the experience that felt confusing to them and caused them to take a few extra moments to complete the task. The key learnings were:

  • All participants loved the map color coding and steep hill features.

  • The steep hill interaction navigated to the elevation graph of the entire route, which was confusing to participants who wanted info on the specific steep hill.

  • Experienced cyclists liked the grade graph feature, but it took some time to understand it.

  • Some of the recommended route nomenclature took a minute to understand (e.g. more bike lanes means it is the safest route).

  • One user wanted more safety info on the route detail page.

Metrics Results

Effectiveness & Efficiency

100% of users completed the tasks and found the tasks easy to do

Satisfaction

60% chose “agree” instead of “strongly agree” due to confusion around how to access the route details.

Usefulness

One participant chose “agree” instead of “strongly agree” due to being confused by the hill grade feature.

Usability problems to explore

  1. As a micro-mobility user, I want to learn more about the steep hill on the route. However, when I tap on the hill icon, I see the elevation and grade info for the entire route, and I am not sure how to find what I am looking for.

  2. As a micro-mobility user, I want to choose the safest route, but the closest option I see on the map is “more bike lanes,” and I am not sure if that means the same thing.

  3. As a micro-mobility user, I want to understand how difficult the ride is, but I don't know how to glean this information from the elevation and graph information.

  4. As a new micro-mobility user, I want to be extra cautious about whether my route is safe, and I am still not sure after looking at the route details.

Design Iterations

I reviewed the feedback from the user testing, and determined what changes I wanted to focus on now, and what changes needed more research:

Prioritized Problems

  1. Redesign the Steep Hill interaction

  2. Improve the route terminology to be more intuitive

Deferred Problems

  1. Elevation & Grade presentation—This is a very complex feature, and it wasn’t feasible to do a deep dive into this experience given the time constraints of this project. It will require its own project in order to have the time to explore the usability in more detail.

  2. Additional safety information—This desire came from one user, and additional research is required to determine whether this is a common need.

Design Changes

Updated terminology

Changed wording from “more bike lanes” to “safest” to provide clarity.

Redesigned hill icon interaction

Changed hill icon interaction so that it displays hill-specific information. This interaction follows a common Google Maps paradigm that is familiar to users.

Learnings

I really enjoyed working with users both in the problem and the solution space and collaborating with them to evolve the solution into something that they would love to use. 

One of the key surprises from this project was that what users say and what they do are very different. Some of the issues that users brought up in discovery research were not a priority when they were using the prototype.

Also, two different personas started emerging—the Newbie and the Pro. Less experienced micro-mobilers had different goals and priorities than those with lots of experience. So, with such a small pool of participants, I had to be careful that I wasn’t overcorrecting for one persona. 

I validated the design solutions by repeatedly returning to the customer problem to ensure I stayed focused and by crafting questions in the usability testing to validate whether the solution solved the core problem. It also helped to observe how the participant interacted with the prototype to see if it alleviated the pain of the customer problem. 

Lastly, I learned that working within an existing design system meant that I had to leverage existing patterns and paradigms as much as possible, even if I approached the UI differently than I would have if I were starting from scratch. 

Additional Resources