RedditToday we’re delighted to unveil a new design for HERE maps. The improvements reflect the advanced thinking about maps that’s been evolving over the last few months and offer the best match ever for our slogan, “Maps for Life”.
The new maps will be available immediately at www.here.com and through Yahoo! Maps. They will also be available through the HERE SDKs on Android and iOS, and other mobile operating systems, later this year.
Click through on the images in this post for larger versions
A stronger differentiation, using colour and road thicknesses, provides a better street hierarchy, which makes it easier to convey the major and minor veins in a road network.
New York, showing the road hierarchy through colour and thickness
To give a better understanding of mountainous areas, we have integrated terrain shading. You’ll also find that different areas like woodlands, parks, hospitals, golf courses, college campuses and other areas are much more saturated and easier to differentiate, with different colours used to distinguish them from one other. Intuitive map reading is improved a lot compared to the previous design.
Terrain around Las Vegas explains the position of roads
“The best maps remove unnecessary elements to clearly illustrate the answer. Whether a map of the London Tube or of a battlefield in war, they follow the same principle: they give an answer to one central question with the right level of reduction and the right visualization,” says Peter Skillman, head of design at HERE.
“That was our primary goal in this redesign effort – we want to display information in a way that makes sense to people and is easy to follow.”
Relevant details emphasised in Hong Kong
We know that different contexts require different maps. This is why considerable care has been put into making sure that map variations, such as our transit or outdoor map emphasise critical information and push back the unnecessary details to provide more clarity and reduce clutter.
Use of colour at the international level
Cities at a glance - here is Melbourne
Terrain explained - Mt. Rainier near Seattle
London transit systems exposed
Moscow, showing traffic levels
Navigating Rome using public transport
3D landmarks in central Paris
Manhattan close-up
We hope you like the new look. They’ll get even better when you come to use them in the contexts for which they have been designed.
As ever, let us know in the comments.