Android is the perfect example of the use of Material Design, something that Google has always planned to replicate across their different web and mobile apps. They have actually started doing so when they launched Lollipop last year, and this year, they are moving forward with their plans by bringing Material Design into Google Maps.
Evident Changes to Google Maps
This is definitely exciting news for the Chicago UX design industry, knowing that their audiences can now have a more streamlined experience with the popular app. Of course, frequent Google Maps users will definitely notice the changes, seeing that a lot of them are very evident.
The color palette alone is an automatic giveaway. The new use of color can now help you distinguish different landmarks and other places of interest on the map more vididly.
Even the menu on the left side has been dressed up. Although the menu has always been there, you can see that the design is cleaner, making it easier on the eyes as you search for places, get directions, and find out more about the places you are looking for. You will also notice that the search bar now takes up less space than it used to.
When you search for a place, an image of the place will pop up. It is also noticeable that the buttons for other options, like looking for nearby places, are now bigger and easier to click.
How This Affects Chicago Web Design
The change definitely affects the way web design works, especially for companies that also integrate their design services with SEO in Chicago.
What is the significance of user interface when it comes to search engine optimization in Chicago?
When people talk about local SEO in Chicago, this means optimizing each of their content, ads, and other marketing strategies so that they can appear right on top of the search engine results page each time a user types relevant keywords in. However, zooming right to the top of these pages does not guarantee success. After all, if the user clicks the link but does not like what they see, they still leave, defeating the purpose of reeling them in in the first place.
With better design comes the assurance of the user staying on the website as well, making conversion a bigger possibility.
Knowing that a lot of web designers use Google Maps in their design in terms of helping people find nearest branch locations and directions to stores, the new Google Maps makes it even easier to have a more consistent overall feel for any project that designers are working on. Although the old look of Google Maps wasn’t really all that bad, it still clashed with a lot of design elements that Chicago designers love using.
Hopefully, the changes made as Google Maps transitions into Material Design also works wonders for other digital professionals. And of course, as with anything new on Google, there’s also a chance that the design may leave a lot more surprises here and there that nobody knows of just yet. So keep exploring and see if there’s anything else that Material Design may be contributing that nobody else has seen as of press time.