What do dashed lines on google maps mean

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Ask a Similar Question Ask Now. Lets Start. This is the really important point, and thank you for making it. Google Maps is used by of millions if not billions of people.

At scale, even "niche" issues matter. How about a dotted line where the dots are question marks. If you use Google Maps on the regular, you'll be used to a solid blue line yellow or red if there's traffic on the car's route.

I don't remember the first time I came across the dotted line, but I certainly don't remember having a hard time figuring out what that meant. Apparently this isn't the case for everyone, though. Also, I'm a nove hiker at best, but even I know that there's essentially zero hikes where the shape of the trail is a nice arc across the map like the one in the story.

I'm legitimately baffled that anyone would have thought that was a suggested path to the peak. You run into the dotted line a lot if you use mass transit directions. Agreed, this is extremely confusing and a pretty big design flaw. Google Maps pops up a warning if the business you are traveling to is closing soon, or if there are tolls. It should show a warning in these situations where the road ends far from the destination.

The heuristics are less obvious, but I think you could catch most cases. You could even prompt to add another section to the trip in walking mode. I see this all the time when setting directions for provincial parks and other "remote" destinations. It never occurred to me that someone would blindly follow them. I think part of the possible confusion is that "cutesy" curved line from the parking area to the peak.

It shouldn't draw anything between where the actual directions end and the map pin, just show the pin. All that being said, changing the directions so it ends up at the visitor center is probably a good choice, regardless of how few people actually were or would be confused. There are better ways to communicate this though. I'd consider a shaded-in area with wiggly outlines, big enough to be path shaped, that just says "walk". That conveys "you need to get yourself to this pin, and we don't know how to help you".

I disagree. Yes, but if they know there's a navigable path but they don't know what it is this is a reasonable approach. Obviously, mapping a destination on an island with wiggly lines through the water which say "walk" would not be useful, but wasn't the situation I was envisioning. It never occurred to you that somebody would "blindly" what does that mean in this context?

That's pretty unreasonable, to put it lightly. Blaming users for the consequences of bad UI is a huge problem in software. Even when road signs disagree, even past road closed signs, even on gravel roads right before the first snowfall. People assume the computer knows the map and that the map is the territory. At least you can fix the map; not sure how to fix the blind trust in humans. While you and I and many a HN reader will understand this, there is something to be said that people will , at some point, mistake this for an actual route and try to follow it.

And that's on them isn't it? Is learning in how to read a map Google or otherwise seriously a too hard of an expectation from a person that goes mountain climbing? I can see the confusion but users also should be mindful of the context of using an app.

In the photo in the article it looks similar. It's not just the dotted line that is being criticized. The driving directions end at the physically closest car park, but not the most appropriate for most people. Great that you know that. OJFord 3 months ago prev [—]. I don't think the article is suggesting people actually literally followed that dotted arc - the mountaineering trust chap's quote is that all the routes from that car park are trepidatious even for experienced people.

Pyramus 3 months ago parent [—]. The article is suggesting both. OJFord 3 months ago root parent [—]. Hacker News new past comments ask show jobs submit. Dylan 3 months ago root parent prev next [—] And unless the user is really used to distinguishing between those two, having that with no further explanation is a terrible way to design a UI.