Removing the hurdles to map-based search on mobile

Recently, I’ve talked a lot about the following as an excellent (in my opinion) showcase for improving the user experience of a mobile product. Back in October last year, the Google mobile team released version 2.0 of their Maps product. This time round, a native application was available for most (if not all) Nokia S60v3 devices: now including a variety of user-friendly features:

1. Semi-translucent soft-key menu button

As we all know, screen space is precious on mobile apps and with this slight alteration, a little bit extra of the map can now been seen. Arguably, an alternative option would be to hide most of the soft key label after a period of inactivity by the user, presenting the user with a more or less full view of the map in question.

2. Faster start-up time

Primarily due to the use of native Symbian code rather than Java, the application now lets the user get to their map view far quicker. Hopefully future Java VM’s will be optimised to the point where we’ll find it hard to detect differences in initial load time (between native and java apps).

3. Basic auto-location (without the need for GPS)

So, more devices are now coming out with one form of GPS or another (e.g assisted GPS). But lets face it, most consumer devices don’t have any form of GPS chip in them. Personally, I tend to use GPS features sparingly on my mobile devices due to the battery-sapping nature of them. This, I feel is one of the reasons why GPS at least at this stage is not ready to take off, as users fundamentally want to know that they have enough battery to make that all-important emergency call. Even though you can use the GPS functionality of your device when using the Google Maps app, you don’t have to – you can instead rely on the not-so-accurate, “triangulation of cell towers” method.

So where am I going with this conversation? The inclusion of this triangulation method (or simple GPS as I like to call it) has a dramatic effect upon the user experience: by simply pressing the ‘0′ key, the application will home in to your location (which will obviously be more accurate when using GPS than triangulation). Either way, with a single key press and a little bit of a wait to load in the viewable map, you’re ready to explore your local area. Compare this user experience with that of the prior version of Google maps, where the user had to go to the following to get to the “explore stage”:

• Key press 1: “Options” Left soft key hit
• Key press 2-4: Traverse up to the “Search” option
• Key press 5: Select the “search” menu item
• Key press 6-11: Minimum key presses required to enter your postcode*
• Key press 12: “Search” actioned

* I realise that it is, in fact, possible to search for shorter place names/postcodes e.g. w4, but I wanted to perform a search with a little more precision and usefulness.

A single or double digit keypress pathway? You choose. I know which one we prefer.

So well done Google on improving what was already quite a nice little app, turning it into something very nice indeed. I urge you to check it out, either for inspiration or for very helpful location-based assistance on the go, GPS or no GPS.