Indistinguishable from Jesse

In the middle of August, Yahoo! Maps made several changes to the way it displays directions:

• The first step, "Start on [street]", became "Start at [address], [city]".
• A last step was added: "Arrive at [address], [city]".
• "Left" and "Right" were replaced by black circles containing "L" and "R", and the column on the right side of the table with arrows was removed.
• Distances and turns used to be separate columns, but now the main column contains lines like "Turn R on MIRALESTE DR - go 0.8 miles".

All of these changes slightly improve the printed directions. But one change can vastly improve directions copied by hand: adding the destination address as the last step.

When I had a small party at my house early in August (before the changes), everyone used Yahoo! Maps for directions because I included a Get directions to my house URL in the invitation. One friend called just before arriving to ask what my address was. Another friend asked a neighbor which house was mine. They both forgot to copy down the address, which appeared in the invitation e-mail and at the top of the Yahoo! Maps page but not in directions themselves.

Yahoo! Maps joins Mappoint in including the destination address as the last step in the directions. Mapquest and Expedia Maps still do not. Expedia's last step is "End: Arrive End".

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 7th, 2003 at 11:02 pm and is filed under User Interfaces. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.