Multi-Stop Trip Planning

Summary

UX redesign improving multi-stop trip planning in Google Maps through better feature discoverability, one-tap route optimization, and flexible navigation.

Challenge

Google Maps' multi-stop features are underused due to poor discoverability and rigid trip management. Users struggle to efficiently organize routes, make changes during navigation, and optimize their trips, leading to manual workarounds and wasted time.

Services

UX Design

Project Info

Research & Discovery

User Interviews:
Conducted 8 interviews (5.5 hours total) with users who regularly plan multi-stop trips for errands, day trips, and travel. Interviews focused on current planning behaviors, pain points, and workarounds.

Affinity Mapping:
Organized research findings into themes including efficiency, flexibility, mental load, confidence during navigation, and route editing friction.

Key Behaviors Identified:

Users mentally optimize routes themselves because they don't trust the app to do it
Many plan in two phases: rough pre-planning, then dynamic adjustments while moving
Users frequently forget features exist or discover them accidentally
Common workarounds include creating separate trips instead of one cohesive route

Primary Pain Points:

Multi-stop planning tools are difficult to discover
Route reordering feels manual and tedious
"Search Along Route" only appears during active navigation, creating friction during planning
No easy way to create round-trip routes
Once navigation starts, trip management becomes secondary

Key Insights

Planning vs Navigation Disconnect:
Users plan trips in two distinct phases, but the current product treats planning and navigating as separate experiences. Real-world behavior requires fluid movement between these states.

"I usually just pick the order myself because I don't know if Maps will do it right."

Discoverability Crisis:
Critical features like route optimization and search along route are hidden behind overflow menus or navigation states. Many users don't know these features exist.

Minimizing Backtracking:
Users hate wasted driving and repeated roads. They manually optimize routes to avoid inefficiency, creating unnecessary mental load.

Round Trip Behavior:
Users frequently need to return to their starting point for errands and day trips, but must manually re-add home as the final destination.

User Persona:

Alex Busyman - Age 35, married, 1 kid, Project Manager, Chicago

"I just want to get everything done without feeling like I'm constantly on the road."

Pain Points:

Overwhelmed when plans change
Frustrated by tools that don't match how they plan

Goals:

Have more time in the day to focus on family and personal projects
Avoid the stress of last-minute changes or unexpected delays
Feel confident that every trip is well-organized and worry-free

Design Prioritization:

Created a prioritization matrix based on effort vs. impact. Quick wins focused on surfacing existing features more clearly and improving discoverability through better UI placement. Smarter solutions leveraged Google's data to anticipate needs and build proactive planning features.

Optimize Route & Loop Trip

Optimize Route:
One-tap automatic route reordering that reduces driving time and eliminates backtracking. Smart reordering is based on efficient routing while giving users control over critical stops.

Key Features:

Lock Stops: Prevent time-sensitive destinations from moving (e.g., appointments, pickups)
Arrival Windows: Prioritize stops with specific time constraints
Automatic distance and time optimization

This addresses the trust gap users felt with automated optimization while maintaining control over important constraints.

Loop Trip:
Dedicated "Return to Start" toggle that automatically adds the starting point as the final destination.

Use Cases:

Errand runs where you need to return home
Day trips exploring multiple locations
Circular road trips

This eliminates the manual step of re-adding home and makes round-trip planning feel intentional rather than makeshift.

Improved Navigation Experience

Enhanced Next Stop Card:
Redesigned navigation interface showing current trip progress, upcoming stop details, and quick access to route editing without requiring users to exit navigation mode.

Better Access to Key Actions:
Redesigned information architecture to make critical actions accessible throughout the trip lifecycle:

Add Stop - Available during planning and navigation
Search Along Route - Accessible before and during navigation (not just during)
Resume Trip - Clearer entry point after pausing

Search Along Route Improvements:
Surface Search Along Route earlier in the trip planning flow, allowing users to preview stops (gas stations, restaurants, rest areas) before committing to navigation. Previously only available during active navigation, creating a disconnect between planning and real-world needs.

Outcome

Successfully designed a more intuitive multi-stop planning experience that made hidden features discoverable, reduced manual optimization work, and supported flexible trip management across planning and navigation states.

This project reinforced the importance of designing for actual user behavior rather than ideal flows. The strongest insights came from understanding the disconnect between planning and navigating, not just improving individual UI elements. Designing for context-sensitive interfaces in a navigation product required balancing simplicity with powerful tools while keeping driver safety top of mind.

Success Metrics Framework:

Defined three measurement categories to track feature adoption and impact:

1. Adoption

Track how often users tap Optimize Route and Loop Trip
Monitor multi-stop trips started
Measure first-time vs. returning feature users

2. Progression

Track trip completion rates (users continuing to next stop)
Monitor how often users complete full multi-stop trips
Measure repeat usage patterns

3. Engagement

Measure duration of trip planning sessions
Compare time spent in multi-stop mode vs. single-stop
Track app opens related to trip planning