Drawing tools for Google maps
We wanted to create tools to allow people to make their own maps by adding places, shapes and lines to any map. In late 2006, I started designing the drawing tools as a 20% project. We launched the feature, known as "my maps" in April 2007 and today people have created over 120 million custom maps. These maps vary from plotting the best burger joints in one's neighborhood, to planning a vacation, to tracing historical events, to documenting disaster-stricken areas in real time, such as the California wildfires and the Japanese tsunami. To interact with these tools, go to maps.google.com (you'll need to be logged in), click on "My places" > "Create new map."
I started by capturing the functionality we could support and then grouping them together by function. My initial proposal for the toolset is below. We consolidated some tools and decided to abandon some all together (e.g., the graphic marker and photo uploader never launched).
For the line and polygon tools, I based the interactions on my experiences with several existing drawing tools that I found to be quite intuitive. After specing the tool interactions, I worked closely with the engineer building the tools. We ran the tools through a few rounds of usability testing to get feedback on people's ability to use the tools and to manipulate the objects at a fine level of detail. Below is a snapshot of the specifications for the polygon tool.
I designed the tool icons and created all of the art work for the tools. I worked closely with the engineering team who implemented the drawing tools.
These drawing tools were used to support Geowiki, a Google initiative to bring map data online for India. The product allowed people to trace satellite imagery of their local cities and towns and provide information for these roads such as surface texture, underpass/overpass, lanes, turn restrictions, etc. The team built a much more powerful set of functionality around the tools, but these same core drawing tools supported that product.
I designed these tools in 20% time, just before I moved over to Maps full time. I worked closely with a PM, an engineer and a researcher who took the tools through a few rounds of usability testing.
