In the 2GIS navigator, you can now choose a cursor that suits your tastes. You can go off-road in a monster truck or fly through traffic in UFOs. Or you can fulfil a childhood dream and ride a fire engine! The introduction of these new cursor options represents a step towards personalization.
We love our application and we love creating things that evoke positive emotions and are enjoyed by ourselves and by our users. We were often asked by users, "can we make the experience more varied?". This inspired us to add voice selection to our navigator. Popular voices such as Nikolai Nikolaevich Drozdov and Matroskin are available for users to use (you can learn how we recorded and added these voices to the nav). There are also friends on the map that we have long dreamed of. They offer a variety of customization options including special emoticons and animations as well as interactions with each other within the map. Yandex.Navigator is no exception. When designing the new cursor we wanted users to be able to customize the default arrow into something more unique. My personal goal is for the arrow to change into something festive for my birthday.
There are a lot of different cars in the world. There are many different brands and models, each with its own unique design and history. Choosing the main models for the project was not an easy task. Cars are designed with the hope they will be popular several years after release. Designers must think ahead and create something people will want to own for a long time.I wanted the cursor to look like a toy you would bring home as a child, but also have the personality and mood of a real car.
At first, I planned to create 3-5 models, but after talking with my team we decided that we should provide users with more variety, even though it meant sacrificing some of the visual aspects. This way we could see which cursor designs users liked and which ones were better to avoid.
We rejected similar car models and chose more recognizable and desirable images from everyday life. Somebody is driving a sports car through the city center, and somebody else is driving an SUV around traffic jams. Professionals are taken into consideration with the addition of vans and official vehicles, such as ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars. Fans were selected more selectively, including an airplane, a monster truck, a hippie van, and a UFO.
Fan and animation trends can be found on Chinese apps such as Baidu and AMAP. There is a variety of colours, shapes, celebrities and characters - your fingers will tire from scrolling through all of the options! On the pedestal, you can select a cat girl who waves her tail, moves her legs, and arms as she walks.
Then, together with a 3D modeler, we assembled models. We decided on the class of the car, collected photos of popular models and highlighted the key elements we wanted on a specific model. This was how we created a "collective image". Wheels, headlights, vents, and side mirrors formed the elements. First we created simple models to understand the mood we were going for.
Then we added more details and tested them again.
Some models have thresholds and edges. This is all visual reference for the main cursor. However, somewhere they realized that details were unnecessary. As with a firetruck, small details are not distinguishable on a map, and add more noise than benefit.
It's also fun with UFOs. First, we draw a flying saucer with no small details. However, we noticed that it was unclear which direction it was heading in free mode. Therefore, we flattened the saucer to make it more like a regular cursor.
One of the difficulties with our map is that it has a very diverse range of colors. Traffic jams make it difficult to follow the route lines. If we made all the models the same color, it would be boring. A red sports car would stand out, but a yellow van would not. Therefore, we chose blue as the main color because it is cool and stands out well against the warm colors of the map. After testing everything in a prototype, we added red, green, yellow and black to the palette.
In order for cursors to appear on the application, you need not only create a visual style that complements the map nicely, but also:
- prepare all the mechanics for loading, storage, and selection of cursors;
- adapt models to the map engine. To test the initial models, we substituted trees on the map for cars. This resulted in a forest of cars, which caused a lot of smiles.
- adapt models to the map engine. To test the initial models, we substituted trees on the map for cars. This resulted in a forest of cars, which caused a lot of smiles.
There were a lot of tests and improvements made to the models, textures, and lighting on the map as well as the contrast. Some decisions were temporarily postponed. For example, we had to show the models up close in the selection screen so we could change their colors and view them from all sides before making any changes. Additionally, I've already compiled a list of model changes: first, we're bringing the radiator grill to a unified style.
As a result, we have created 16 different models, including the basic model, the model from "Friends", and other models with various names. Due to legal restrictions, we were unable to use well-known car brands, and therefore had to come up with humorous names for our products.
Already, a sports car and an SUV have taken the lead in the car navigation market, while a monster truck is at the top in cargo navigation. Fire trucks and hippie cars have turned out to be less popular but have also found their audience. Interestingly, an idea for selecting the cursor when tapping on a geomarker was introduced on the map.
Thanks for watching!