# Map drawing UX is still too hard

By [The Slow Hunch by Nick Grossman](https://paragraph.com/@nickgrossman) · 2009-06-15

mymaps, tech-design-internet

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![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/7acfc3647b98158777faf7936df5784b.png)

At work today, we are exploring the process of drawing routes on a map, thinking ahead to a few upcoming projects involving bike planning.  So [Sonali](http://twitter.com/jollysonali) set up a [Google MyMap](http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&vps=4&jsv=160h&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=113720615408070911537.00046c2d0fa37a795bc54) and asked a few of us to mark our routes to work.  In a nutshell, it was basically a flop, with two out of three people giving up before finishing.  [Paul Winkler](http://slinkp.com/) summed up the process beautifully:

> My internal dialog went something like:  "okay, now my route is merging with Nick's ... oops, now i'm editing Nick's line by mistake, how do I undo that? (random clicking around) ...  ok now i'm back to editing my line ...  argh, it's going down the wrong street... let's try this way... whoa, why is there a random line floating around in the water? can't seem to get rid of that one... oops, didn't want to put a point there, let's see if i can delete it... click... oops, i apparently deleted all the work i just did on my line, and there doesn't seem to be an undo for that. F\*\*k it."

It's tough UI to get right -- basically you're trying to replicate the vector drawing capabilities of tools like Illustrator, but in a simple way that provides just the right amount of control.  Not easy.  Safe to say that collaborative route drawing has not crossed over into the mainstream yet.

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*Originally published on [The Slow Hunch by Nick Grossman](https://paragraph.com/@nickgrossman/map-drawing-ux-is-still-too-hard)*