Google Maps Case Study

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Overview

Google Maps holds the top spot in navigation apps and I personally use it almost daily for public transit. Talking to friends around me, we agreed that despite Google Maps being one of the best for navigation, there were some improvements around public transit that could be improved on.

In addition, with Gemini being rolled out into Google's apps, I wanted to see how it could be incorporated into Google Maps.

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This case study is work in progress, and will be updated incrementally over the next few weeks!

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Skip to Final Product

Critique

To conduct a heuristic evaluation of the existing application, I'll be focusing on 3 guidelines I believe make the biggest difference for users finding directions to places of interest in NYC.

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User Flow

Finding directions to places of interest within the NYC metropolitan area on a mobile device

Guidelines

Usefulness
Understandable
Honest

Goals + Metrics

Goals

Incorporate Gemini into Maps to help users find places of interest
Improve user trust by giving users more feedback and control
Use UX as a medium for communication between users and maps

Metrics

Increase in UMUX score
Increase in user trust, measured via Trust of Automated Systems Test (TOAST)
Shorter time taken between opening the app to the start of journey

Market Research

Navigation App Market

Google Maps is used by 70% of monthly navigation and map app users, with Apple Maps coming in second (source). As the user flow I chose to focus on is scoped for navigation within NYC, I focused research on navigation apps that service this area: Transit, Citymapper and MTA.

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⇱ View Analysis

Competitive Analysis

I conducted competitive analysis of public transit competitors, focusing on the 3 heuristics identified in my critique (usability, understandable, honesty).

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Improvements:

User Feedback

Effective communication is key to setting the right expectations with users

Provide Sources

Providing sources increases the reliability of genAI information

Regular Updates

Keeping information fresh increases quality and reliability

System Status

Providing low performance status allows users to make informed decisions

User Research

The main goals were to identify:

How users currently use public transit features in Google Maps.
Current and near-future deployment of AI in Google Maps.

Using surveys allowed me to gather data from more people and ensured consistency to evaluate general patterns while semi-structured interviews allowed me to go in depth to understand user's experiences, motivations and feelings. It also allowed me the flexibility to probe deeper based on responses to explore unforeseen topics.

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⇱ View Survey

Surveys

x respondents

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⇱ View Interview Script

Interviews

5 participants

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Insights

lorem ipsum

- coding interviews + pics of interviews
- affinity mapping
- prioritization matrix according to the metrics + effort + value

tradeoffs:
- customer satisfaction
- implementation difficulty
- revenue potential

Prioritization

- situation, customer, customer needs, prioritization, list solutions, evaluate tradeoffs, summarize recommendation.

Design

- moodboards, paper prototypes, wireframes, hifi mockup (figma embed)
- branding, design system, components
- explain design decisions with reference to HCI principles + design patterns + behavioural econs + psychology (psysocial)

Tech Feasibility

- outline the tech implementation

Prototype

- paste figma embed

User Testing

- experiment procedure
- interview scripts
- user test, hotjar, usertesting.com, qualtrics

Final Product

- explain, figma embed

Marketing

- how to reach the customer segments
- targeting
- positioning (price, promotion, distribution)
- search advertising, SEO

- add mock-ups of advertising on web and in real life (follow marco.fyi's take out case)

Retrospective

- what went well
- what needs to be improved