Ex-Googler Reacts to Google Maps’ New Design

• Google Maps has a new look — and some users of the GPS app don’t like it. 
• A former Google Maps designer said the app’s new color palette feels “colder” and  “less human.”
• Other Maps users said the design update “SUCKS A**” and makes the app unrecognizable.

Google Maps, the tech giant’s GPS app, has a new look that’s drawing the ire of some users — including a former Google designer who claims she worked on the app in its early days.

Last week, Google announced in a blog post that it has issued updates to its Maps app. The updates, which the company said will roll out to iOS and Android users in the coming weeks, include public transit directions with more detail, locations for electric vehicle charging stations, and a feature that allows friends to share their favorite places, to name a few.

But one Maps upgrade is causing public uproar across social media — its new color scheme. After the Google Maps facelift, roads are now gray, water changed from a darker to a lighter blue reminiscent of a clear sky, and parks and other public spaces are now a lighter shade of green.

Elizabeth Laraki, who claims she was one of two designers behind Google Maps in 2007 and admits to using it every day, posted her gripes with the app’s new visual design on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Laraki said the colors of water and parks “blend together” and that the app’s color palette looks more “computer generated.”

“I don’t love it,” the ex-Google Maps designer wrote on X regarding the design update. “It feels colder, less accurate and less human.”

Other Google Maps users echoed Laraki’s critiques around the app’s new colors.

“I’m definitely late to the party but this new Google Maps color scheme SUCKS A**,” Sasha Luccioni, an AI researcher at Hugging Face, an AI startup, wrote on X.

“Why has Google maps all of a sudden changed the colors?” one X user who claims to be a product management expert wrote. “Has the water really turned turquoise from blue?

Some Google Maps users don’t even recognize the app anymore.

“i thought i was looking at the wrong app the first time i opened it after the switch,” tech commentator Paris Marx wrote on X regarding Maps.

Still, longtime Maps users aren’t dunking on every new design feature. Laraki, the ex-Google Maps designer, said that major roads, traffic, and trails stand out more — an update she believes is part of Google’s goal to make Maps’ easier to use.

In fact, one Maps user wrote on Reddit that they actually like its new colors because it offers greater contrast that’s “a bit more pleasing to the eye.”

Despite the changes, Laraki believes Google “missed a big opportunity” in terms of simplifying the design of Maps.

“Google Maps should have cleaned up the crud overlaying the map,” Laraki wrote in reference to features like the placement of the search box and satellite and traffic overlays.

John Gruber, a tech blogger, responded to Laraki’s X thread with his own thoughts on Google Maps’ new design.

“This is a very long way of saying that Google Maps’s app design should be like Apple Maps,” Gruber wrote in a blog post.

In other words, Google Maps users may’ve switched to Apple Maps for a good reason.

Google and Laraki didn’t immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment before publication.