Fugly Bing Map

Has anyone check out the new Bing map? It is fugly. Sure I know there is a need to reduce the name overload, but, the color is just BORING. And the new Dynamic Beta = Fail. I mean, when I drag to move the map, my already showing street names disappeared. Seriously, why even bother to hide it when it is already loaded. In addition, it takes one second or two to load the new street name, which is like, "why do I even bother to wait???".

So far, I give it a -10.

WTH are they thinking?

I like it, especially the fonts.  Also apparently its designed to be usable by color blind people.

I love it. Roads are a lot clearer, as is the fact that the street names now follow the street.

Hummm...... color blind people, couldn't they have a separate version? Anyway, the map is really consistant though, all the same design, in Asia too, except Japan.

magicalclick said:

Hummm...... color blind people, couldn't they have a separate version? Anyway, the map is really consistant though, all the same design, in Asia too, except Japan.

Depends on what spec you're going off of.  For example, government websites and websites that cater to the government are supposed to be Section 508C Compliant.  In that spec, they explain that writing a separate copy for 508 users is a last resort.

And it makes sense, somewhat.  Realistically, how many blind people are going to look at maps?

OK, that's not fair. Color blind people need maps too. And for that we have Print Preview.

Ion Todirel said:

No POIs, no Bing Maps, as simple as that. For me, as a user, POIs is a killer feature. Did you know Google Maps can even show bus stops and departure times on a tooltip?

For POIs (points of interest?) you can click Map Apps, and then "What's Nearby".

I agree that bus stops and current times would be fantastic. Other than that missing feature, Bing Maps stomps all over Google Maps in terms of interface slickness and usability.

I'd love to see what all of you are talking about, but Bing Maps consistently locks up IE for me.

I like it, simply because Iceland had craptastic road maps before. Now they are usable. The colors don't bug me and I find it easy on the eyes and easy to read.

I like it... but for some reason Bing Maps doesn't load when there's a corporate firewall in between

magicalclick said:

Hummm...... color blind people, couldn't they have a separate version? Anyway, the map is really consistant though, all the same design, in Asia too, except Japan.

"Hummm...... color blind people, couldn't they have a separate version?"

Right. And while we are at it, let's also make a separate version for everyone named Alfred.

Seriously, the whole idea of making accessible web sites and software is to design them so that they can work for everybody, not creating a galaxy of separate sites. It's a "please use other door" sign for people with disabilities.

There are situations in which that is necessary, and that's already bad enough, but using something like that when there are no unavoidable technical difficulties (and I don't think that "boring colors" qualifies) would be just unexcusable.

I like the look. My first impression was that the maps were ugly as well. But the flat fonts make sense.

Perhaps if the color scheme were black and white or something not purple and whatever they are using. Kind of like the color schemes for the new channel9, they just aren't ideal.

The design has drawn a lot of criticisms though. It is a great improvement, and the Bing team should be proud <<< Read this bing team.

Oh and I am not sure if this is related to the update, but it sure seems like it, but when you enable traffic, the maps becomes extremely slow. The silverlight and ajax version are both affected. The traffic button basically hoses the browser. I have tried this in all three major browsers. Perhaps it is my locale, I am not sure...

Ion Todirel said:

Blue Ink said:

*snip*

That's not an excuse to make things poor, thought

Poor is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe they should make a separate version for people with no taste?

 The colors are indeed fugly. And it is a resource hog.  Are you reading this maps team ? Geez ..... is the idea of writing a performant code dead with the abondonement of C++ ?   Newsflash my dear friends... it is possible to writing a performant code even in C#. Geez....

Srikanth_t said:

 The colors are indeed fugly. And it is a resource hog.  Are you reading this maps team ? Geez ..... is the idea of writing a performant code dead with the abondonement of C++ ?   Newsflash my dear friends... it is possible to writing a performant code even in C#. Geez....

Performance does need to be increased. It is almost unsuable at times.

Ion Todirel said:

Blue Ink said:

*snip*

That's not an excuse to make things poor, thought

@Ion Todirel: never said it was... even though I admit that excuse is used way too often.

About the maps, I find them clean and readable. The difference is pretty evident by comparing continental Europe with the UK and Ireland, that apparently didn't get their dose of purple love yet.

I think it looks great (at least for the stuff in my area that I was looking at -- didn't look at Europe).  Good job to the Bing team!  The performance was great for me too.  I didn't have any problem at all with performance or useability, and I was using a rather flaky connection.