I have a lousy sense of direction, so Google Maps has always been my right-hand app. On a whim last year, I decided to skip the beach and sunburn and head to Budapest for spring break. That’s when Google Maps became my best friend.

我的方向感很差，因此Google Maps一直是我的右手应用。 去年我一时兴起，我决定跳过海滩和晒伤，然后去布达佩斯度过春假。 那时候Google地图成为我最好的朋友。

When I wasn’t admiring the Buda Castle or bathing in the Széchenyi Thermal Baths, I was on Google Maps. Google Maps helped me decide where to eat, how many attractions I could see in a day, what public transportation to take, and — when I inevitably got lost — how to get back to my Airbnb.

当我不欣赏布达城堡或在塞切尼温泉浴场沐浴时，我在Google地图上。 Google Maps帮助我决定了在哪里吃饭，一天可以看到多少景点，乘坐哪种公共交通工具，以及(当我不可避免地迷路时)如何回到Airbnb。

I learned that when I take a trip to a new area, I want to explore and engage with that place as much as possible. This is difficult because:

我了解到，当我去一个新地区旅行时，我想尽可能地探索并与之互动。 这很困难，因为：

1. I don’t always know which places to explore

   我并不总是知道该探索哪些地方

2. I don’t know how to optimize my route to make sure I get to all of the places I want to see

   我不知道如何优化路线以确保到达所有我想看的地方

3. I don’t know where to save my ideas and plans in one place

   我不知道将我的想法和计划保存在哪里

第一件事第一 (First Things First)

User Research

用户研究

I interviewed ten users to understand how people use Google Maps to plan daily activities. I found two distinct user-types:

我采访了十个用户，以了解人们如何使用Google Maps计划日常活动。 我发现了两种不同的用户类型：

1. Logistic-Oriented. These are users who use Google Maps daily to optimize their routes. They like to focus on numbers: trip duration, mileage, and traffic delays.

   面向物流。 这些是每天使用Google Maps优化其路线的用户。 他们喜欢关注数字：出行时间，里程和交通延误。

2. Explorers. These users might not use Google Maps as their primary navigation app. They use it to find things to do, pin locations they want to visit, and see what those places look like using Street View.

   探险家。 这些用户可能不使用Google Maps作为其主要导航应用程序。 他们使用它来查找要做的事情，固定要访问的位置，并使用街景视图查看这些地方的外观。

In general, both user types agreed: Google Maps is great at 1) helping you decide where to go and 2) helping you get there.

总的来说，两种用户类型都同意：Google Maps擅长以下方面：1)帮助您决定要去哪里； 2)帮助您到达那里。

Market Research

市场调查

Logistic-oriented users praised Google Maps for having the most accurate GPS information. Users also agreed that Google Maps promotes exploration more than other navigation apps.

面向物流的用户称赞Google Maps具有最准确的GPS信息。 用户还同意Google地图比其他导航应用程序更能促进探索。

Although Google Maps lets you share your route progress and favorite places with friends, it has very limited social elements — especially compared to apps like Waze. I thought this could be an interesting opportunity area. Could adding a larger social element help users find even more cool places to explore through their network of friends?

尽管Google Maps允许您与朋友共享路线进度和最喜欢的地点，但社交元素非常有限，尤其是与Waze之类的应用相比。 我认为这可能是一个有趣的机会领域。 可以添加更大的社交元素来帮助用户通过其朋友网络找到更多更酷的地方进行探索吗？

After acquiring a hefty stack of sticky notes and recruiting two friends, we got to work brainstorming ways that Google Maps could be even more useful to me on my next spring break trip.

在获得大量便签并招募了两个朋友之后，我们开始集思广益，以求在我的下一个春假旅行中，谷歌地图对我来说更加有用。

Identifying Opportunity Areas

确定机会领域

Two areas of improvement stuck out for enhancing trips to new areas:

为了改善前往新领域的旅行，突出了两个改进领域：

1. Exploring + Connecting. This would give users even more ideas of places to visit when traveling.

   探索+连接。 这将使用户在旅行时可以更多地了解游览地点。

2. Organizing + Planning. This would help users optimize their routes and get to all the places they want to go efficiently.

   组织+计划。 这将帮助用户优化路线，并高效到达所有想要去的地方。

With this in mind, we narrowed our potential solutions down to 4 viable features:

考虑到这一点，我们将潜在的解决方案缩小到4个可行的功能：

Although including friend activity might give users more ideas for places to go, user feedback helped me understand that a large social component would overly complicate a navigation app — and actually drive some users away.

尽管包括朋友活动可能使用户对去的地方有了更多的想法，但用户的反馈帮助我了解到，庞大的社交组件会使导航应用程序过于复杂，并实际上使一些用户离开。

I wanted a solution that would appeal to both the logistic-oriented users and explorers. After accounting for feasibility and impact, I chose my final solution.

我想要一个对面向物流的用户和浏览器都有吸引力的解决方案。 考虑了可行性和影响后，我选择了最终的解决方案。

定位我的目的地 (Pinpointing My Destination)

I decided to go with the Saved Routes feature.

我决定使用“ 保存的路线”功能。

Thanks to Google Maps, we have a lot of valuable information at our fingertips. After going through the trouble of finding the best route for you — shouldn’t you be able to save it for later?

多亏了Google地图，我们唾手可得了许多有价值的信息。 在为您找到最佳路线的麻烦之后，您难道不可以保存它以便以后使用吗？

到达那里 (Getting There)

Choosing an Entry Point

选择一个入口点

The first step was exploring how users would access this feature. I wanted the entry point to be visible and intuitive. However, I didn’t want it to be so prominent that it distracted from Google Maps’ main goal of getting you from point A to point B. I played around with different entry points to explore how users might save their routes:

第一步是探索用户如何访问此功能。 我希望入口点可见且直观。 但是，我不希望它如此突出以至于偏离了Google Maps将您从A点带到B点的主要目标。我在不同的入口点进行了探索，以探索用户如何保存其路线：

I decided that Screen B accomplished this goal best. I thought putting the entry point on the home screen like Screen A might enhance visibility — but, user testing showed that it made more sense to save the route only after actually creating it. Although Screen C could serve as an additional entry point, I decided to focus on one main access point for my study.

我认为Screen B最好地实现了这个目标。 我以为将入口点放在屏幕A之类的主屏幕上可能会提高可见性-但是，用户测试表明，仅在实际创建路径之后保存路径才有意义。 尽管Screen C可以作为额外的入口点，但我还是决定将重点放在一个主要的访问点上进行研究。

Accessing Saved Routes

访问保存的路线

Examining the information hierarchy of Google Maps, I got a good feel for where a list of saved routes might fit in. The ‘Saved’ tab on the homepage seemed like a pretty logical choice to me.

检查了Google Maps的信息层次结构后，我对可能保存的路线列表适合的位置有了很好的感觉。主页上的“ Saved”选项卡对我来说似乎是很合理的选择。

Next, I wanted to explore what the ‘Saved Routes’ page might look like. I decided that it would be helpful to have folders to organize routes — but I wasn’t sure what the best layout would be.

接下来，我想探索“保存的路线”页面的外观。 我认为使用文件夹来组织路线会有所帮助-但我不确定最佳布局是什么。

User feedback confirmed that organization is a top priority. Participants agreed that folders would help with organization, but they didn’t want to be forced to use them. They also liked the idea of sorting and searching for routes. I ended up choosing a design most similar to Screen A because it was most visually consistent with similar Google Maps features and it would allow users to filter their routes so they could find them efficiently.

用户反馈确认组织是重中之重。 与会者同意，文件夹将有助于组织，但他们不想被迫使用它们。 他们还喜欢对路线进行分类和搜索的想法。 我最终选择了一个与屏幕A最相似的设计，因为它在视觉上与类似的Google Maps功能保持一致，并且允许用户过滤其路线，以便他们可以高效地找到它们。

铺在坑洼处 (Paving Over the Potholes)

After establishing the entry points for saving and accessing routes, I turned to optimizing my flows for efficiency and visual design.

建立用于保存和访问路线的入口点后，我转向优化流程以提高效率和视觉设计。

Naming and Saving Routes to Folders

命名和保存路由到文件夹

Originally, my flow for naming and saving a route had 3 separate steps: naming a route, deciding whether to save it to a folder, and choosing a folder to save it in. User feedback showed that I could enhance this flow by combining steps.

最初，我的命名和保存路线的流程包含3个单独的步骤：命名路线，决定是否将其保存到文件夹中以及选择要保存到其中的文件夹。用户反馈显示，我可以通过组合步骤来增强此流程。

Although Flow B combines all 3 steps, the pop-up is overly crowded and visually unappealing. I ended up going with a flow most similar to Flow C, which gives users more information about each folder and is easier to read.

尽管流程B合并了所有三个步骤，但弹出窗口过于拥挤且视觉上不吸引人。 最后，我使用了与Flow C最相似的流程，该流程为用户提供了有关每个文件夹的更多信息，并且更易于阅读。

Next, I focused on visual design. I made the following adjustments to make sure I was staying consistent with the Google Maps brand.

接下来，我专注于视觉设计。 我进行了以下调整，以确保与Google Maps品牌保持一致。

I ended up creating a Google Maps UI Kit to help me stay visually consistent. Because I’m building off of Google’s work, I knew visual consistency would be key to integrating my feature successfully.

我最终创建了一个Google Maps UI Kit，以帮助我保持视觉上的一致性。 因为我是基于Google的工作，所以我知道视觉一致性是成功集成功能的关键。

Editing Previously Saved Routes

编辑以前保存的路线

Finally, I focused on how users could edit their Saved Routes. At first, I wanted to have a prominent Edit Button to draw attention to it. Then, I realized this would be changing the flow that Google Maps has in place.

最后，我重点介绍了用户如何编辑其保存的路线。 首先，我想要一个醒目的“编辑按钮”来吸引人们的注意。 然后，我意识到这将改变Google Maps的流程。

The Ellipses Button in the upper-right corner of the screen already lets users edit!

屏幕右上角的椭圆按钮已经可以让用户进行编辑！

I decided to go with Screen C. This screen maintains the editing flow that Google Maps already has by using the Ellipses Button. The highlighted Saved Button also provides feedback so users know they are editing a previously saved route.

我决定使用屏幕C。此屏幕使用省略号按钮来维护Google Maps已经具有的编辑流程。 高亮显示的“保存的按钮”还提供反馈，使用户知道他们正在编辑以前保存的路线。

到了 (Arrived.)

After polishing off my flows and visual design, it was time to put the pieces together.

在完善流程和视觉设计之后，是时候将这些片段放在一起了。

Finalized Flows

最终流程

I also created a prototype to show how users would interact with the feature within the actual Google Maps app.

我还创建了一个原型，以展示用户如何与实际Google Maps应用程序中的功能进行交互。

Google Maps is already great at helping users explore new places and helping them get there. My hope is that saving routes will allow users to take full advantage of the mapping and explore capabilities by letting them plan trips in advance. Users can then feel good about taking the time they need to create the best route for them knowing they can save it and come back to it later.

Google地图已经非常擅长于帮助用户探索新地点并帮助他们到达那里。 我希望通过保存路线，可以让用户提前计划行程，从而充分利用地图并探索功能。 然后，用户知道自己可以保存并稍后返回，便可以花些时间为他们创建最佳路线，从而感觉良好。

Thanks for tuning in to my first case study! I really enjoyed gaining design experience through Cornell AppDev’s Digital Product Design class and can’t wait to continue developing my UI/UX skills in the future. If you have any thoughts, feel free to connect— I’d love to hear them!

感谢您收看我的第一个案例研究！ 我真的很喜欢通过Cornell AppDev的数字产品设计课程获得设计经验，并且迫不及待地希望将来继续发展我的UI / UX技能。 如果您有任何想法，请随时联系 -我很想听听他们的意见！