Redmond, Washington — Software behemoth Microsoft continues to cuddle up to Nokia as the initial signs of Nokia’s strategic partnership with the software company are beginning to harvest fruits. Now extending the relationship, Bing and Nokia conjunctively announced today that they are marrying their respective map designs in order to provide a clearer, more visually appealing map for their users.
The concept of the cartographic coupling will widen the details of the mapping service so users will more easily able to find where they are going even easier than before. The consolidated offering is touted as being an improvement in terms of contrast and usability.
However, users can feverishly explore the new maps design that is available now on desktop and mobile versions of Bing and Nokia Maps, and includes the use of Nokia’s Pure font for all map legends.
According to the Bing team reports that it has improved the mapping colour palette to create a cleaner and seamless view of roads and landmarks to produce maps that are easier to understand. For example, the new road colour is further clarified from rivers while not competing with traffic colours or overlaid information.
According to Bing Team noting on a blog post that Bing Maps designers collaborated closely with Nokia maps and Windows phone team “to unify all map elements, including improved contrast, colors, and usability to ultimately create a more beautiful and functional map.”
The designers have also made efforts to enhance various typography components including font updates, improved readability and contextual labeling. Various type sizes have also been spread out to different classes of labels, so for example city names consistently grow and become more transparent through zoom levels.
One of the most prominent features evident in the map upgrade is how less cluttered the maps appear to be without reducing the amount of knowledge available to a user. The examples below were provided from Nokia’s announcement and, while they are small, even at that scale you can instantly see that the image is a lot clearer and less overwhelming. The side streets are not so prominent and lumped together with the main roads that you are more likely to need. The colors designating water or grassy areas seem more pastel, too, so you are in luck if you prefer softer hues. The color enhancements will hopefully help users avoid mistaking roads for rivers (i.e., driving into rivers).
Old Nokia Map… Image Credit: (Nokia)
In fact, according to Bing, users will discover massive improvements to the topographical details to a map. When you are ready for second helpings of Bing Maps, another enhancement that may serve to reanimate your appetite is the way the text is now flush with whatever level of zoom you are using. Further, the map design has been focused on these parameters, Common color palette for road map style, Celebrate Typography, using Visual Hierarchy to create Focus and maintain context.
New Nokia Map… Image Credit: (Nokia)
In addition to the map design updates, Bing also notes a change to the visual hierarchy on the maps. Different amounts of information will be observed depending on what degree you are zoomed in so users would not be met with a barrage of detailed information before they need it. “Go in for detail, pull back for context,” Bing easily explains.
Although the changes are going to be noticeable to people regardless of what map they are using, Bing cites some big improvements to countries like Egypt, Israel, Malta, Philippines, Uruguay and Venezuela.
The upgrade will be rolled out gradually on Nokia web maps, first on maps.nokia.com, then later to the Bing, however, did not revealed if it will be gradually rolling out the changes but the changes seems to be live for the website and the mobile site.