Good map UI design is a balance of design and data. Mapbox provides various templates that will help you create a visual appearance that works best for you. Services like Google Maps or Mapbox offer nice ready-to-use mapping tools that will help you create a map in no time. Unless you want to design a unique map and have relevant cartography skills, it’s better to avoid creating your own basemap style from scratch. This is the layer with controls that allow users to interact with the map. This layer has features (usually, points of interest such as buildings, places, or anything else that is valuable for the user) that designers place on top of the basemap layer. Basemap is the map layer on which you display your features. Typically, it’s possible to define three layers of information: However, when you start to look closely, you will notice that every map UI consists of multiple layers of information. After all, maps don’t have many elements. What is UI mapping?Īt first glance, map UI design looks simple. This article shares some best practices that will help you design a good map UI as well as great map design inspirations. People use maps to explore content, get directions, or find places (restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores, etc.). Today, maps are an essential element of many popular web and mobile apps.

Maps have increasingly taken center stage in user interface design.

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