Google Maps Midpoint Finder
Overview
Reimagining how Google Maps supports shared decision-making through midpoint-based place discovery.
My Role
UX Designer
Scope
End to end experience
Timeline
3 weeks
Setting the Context
Coordinating a meeting point between people in different locations is often more complicated than expected. People are left manually comparing routes, estimating travel times, and searching for a place that feels equally convenient for everyone involved.
Despite navigation tools making travel easier, finding a fair and practical midpoint remains a fragmented and time-consuming process.
What does meetup coordination look like today?
From a sample size of 53 survey participants and 14 interviews,
88.7%
of people coordinate meetups across the city at least a few times a month.
84.9%
of people rely on navigation apps at least a few times a week.
7 in every 10 people
find it difficult to identify a convenient meeting point.
What shapes the way people choose meeting locations?
To understand the problem, interviews were conducted across in person and remote settings.
Shared Convenience
TRAVEL EQUITY
People like locations where travel effort feels equally distributed. Fairness matters as much as distance.
Meeting Context
PURPOSE & TIMING
A midpoint works when venues match the purpose of the meeting and are open at the required time.
More People, More Variables
GROUP SIZE & PREFERENCE
As more people are added, midpoint selection becomes increasingly shaped by individual constraints and preferences.
Known areas vs. new zones
FAMILIARITY
People gravitate toward familiar areas, even when fairer options exist. Better midpoints require trust in the system.
Initial Hypothesis/ Goal
By this stage, preliminary research had already provided an early understanding of the problem space and the factors influencing how people choose meeting locations.
Enabling users to discover and evaluate places between multiple locations may
reduce the friction of coordinating meeting points and planning travel stops.
How do people coordinate and decide where to meet?
The current scenario
Pain Points
Users switch between multiple tools (Maps, Zomato, chat).
Midpoint tools fail to support venue evaluation.
Travel convenience for each participant is hard to compare.
Opportunities
Combine midpoint calculation and venue discovery in one interface.
Surface venues near the midpoint with ratings, filters and know before you go.
Visualize travel time for each participant to every venue.
Where Existing Solutions Fall Short
To better understand the current landscape, I analysed existing tools that help users find meeting points between multiple locations.
WhatsHalfway calculates a geographic midpoint, then redirects users to a Google Maps search for venues near that area (e.g. “restaurants near Road No. 3, Banjara Hills”). Since the original locations are no longer part of the search, users can’t easily compare travel convenience.
While MeetWays successfully maps the route midpoint, it does not surface specific locations or venue recommendations around that point.
Midpointr’s paid venue suggestions introduce a high trust barrier for a relatively low-stakes task, leading users to default to known restaurants and familiar platforms.
How might we
How might we help people quickly discover convenient places between multiple locations so that coordinating where to meet becomes faster and easier?
Meet Halfways
The right recommendations for every meetup.
Plan your meetup
Add everyone's locations and tell us what you're in the mood for.
Curated recommendations for your meetup
Balanced for convenience, relevance, and travel.
Compare distances
Compare commute times at a glance and make better meetup decisions.
Found great places? Share and decide together.
Save places to a shared list where everyone can vote, react, and add their own suggestions.
Why not use Ask Maps?
Ask Maps is great for discovery. A dedicated Midpoint Finder is optimized for coordinating between known locations.
AI Ambiguity is dangerous in navigation
Navigation demands certainty: a wrong address match can send users miles away.
Conversation is ephemeral, features are persistent
Features remember frequent locations; chat requires re-establishing context every time.
Co-ordination is multi-party,
chat is single user
A shared interface supports collaborative decisions, not one-person conversations.
Discoverability through seeing, not knowing
A dedicated UI makes the feature obvious, so users discover it without knowing to ask.
Ideal scenario ( info arc)
To better understand the current landscape, I analysed existing tools that help users find meeting points between multiple locations.
testing, insights and fixes
To better understand the current landscape, I analysed existing tools that help users find meeting points between multiple locations.
Even if conversational AI confirms ambiguous locations, precision tasks still require multiple conversational turns, whereas structured input resolves the same ambiguity instantly.
@shaspaz
This is based on straight-line distance. Factoring in actual road routes would make the midpoint much more practical for real travel.
@anfashaw9270
This has too many steps. Can't keep track of all the steps!
@gaelrodgers3805
How do I find the midpoint between 3 or more points?
@mpiloz8601
this would be great... If we were birds
Google Maps Midpoint Finder
Overview
Reimagining how Google Maps supports shared decision-making through midpoint-based place discovery.
My Role
UX Designer
Scope
End to end experience
Timeline
3 weeks
Setting the Context
Coordinating a meeting point between people in different locations is often more complicated than expected. People are left manually comparing routes, estimating travel times, and searching for a place that feels equally convenient for everyone involved.
Despite navigation tools making travel easier, finding a fair and practical midpoint remains a fragmented and time-consuming process.
What does meetup coordination look like today?
From a sample size of 53 survey participants and 14 interviews,
88.7%
of people coordinate meetups across the city at least a few times a month.
84.9%
of people rely on navigation apps at least a few times a week.
7 in every 10 people
find it difficult to identify a convenient meeting point.
What shapes the way people choose meeting locations?
To understand the problem, interviews were conducted across in person and remote settings.
Shared Convenience
TRAVEL EQUITY
People like locations where travel effort feels equally distributed. Fairness matters as much as distance.
Meeting Context
PURPOSE & TIMING
A midpoint works when venues match the purpose of the meeting and are open at the required time.
More People, More Variables
GROUP SIZE & PREFERENCE
As more people are added, midpoint selection becomes increasingly shaped by individual constraints and preferences.
Known areas vs. new zones
FAMILIARITY
People gravitate toward familiar areas, even when fairer options exist. Better midpoints require trust in the system.
Initial Hypothesis/ Goal
By this stage, preliminary research had already provided an early understanding of the problem space and the factors influencing how people choose meeting locations.
Enabling users to discover and evaluate places between multiple locations may reduce the friction of coordinating meeting points and planning travel stops.
How do people coordinate and decide where to meet?
The current scenario
Pain Points
Users switch between multiple tools (Maps, Zomato, chat).
Midpoint tools fail to support venue evaluation.
Travel convenience for each participant is hard to compare.
Midpoint tools fail to support venue evaluation.
Travel convenience for each participant is hard to compare.
Opportunities
Combine midpoint calculation and venue discovery in one interface.
Surface venues near the midpoint with ratings, filters and know before you go.
Visualize travel time for each participant to every venue.
Surface venues near the midpoint with ratings, filters and know before you go.
Visualize travel time for each participant to every venue.
Where Existing Solutions Fall Short
To better understand the current landscape, I analysed existing tools that help users find meeting points between multiple locations.
WhatsHalfway calculates a geographic midpoint, then redirects users to a Google Maps search for venues near that area (e.g. “restaurants near Road No. 3, Banjara Hills”). Since the original locations are no longer part of the search, users can’t easily compare travel convenience.
While MeetWays successfully maps the route midpoint, it does not surface specific locations or venue recommendations around that point.
Midpointr’s paid venue suggestions introduce a high trust barrier for a relatively low-stakes task, leading users to default to known restaurants and familiar platforms.
How might we
Enabling users to discover and evaluate places between multiple locations may reduce the friction of coordinating meeting points and planning travel stops.
Meet Halfways
The right recommendations for every meetup.
Plan your meetup
Add everyone's locations and tell us what you're in the mood for.
Curated recommendations for your meetup
Balanced for convenience, relevance, and travel.
Compare distances
Compare commute times at a glance and make better meetup decisions.
Found great places? Share and decide together.
Save places to a shared list where everyone can vote, react, and add their own suggestions.
Why not use Ask Maps?
Ask Maps is great for discovery. A dedicated Midpoint Finder is optimized for coordinating between known locations.
AI Ambiguity is dangerous in navigation
Navigation demands certainty: a wrong address match can send users miles away.
Conversation is ephemeral, features are persistent
Features remember frequent locations; chat requires re-establishing context every time.
Co-ordination is multi-party,
chat is single user
A shared interface supports collaborative decisions, not one-person conversations.
Discoverability through seeing, not knowing
A dedicated UI makes the feature obvious, so users discover it without knowing to ask.
Ideal scenario ( info arc)
To better understand the current landscape, I analysed existing tools that help users find meeting points between multiple locations.
testing, insights and fixes
To better understand the current landscape, I analysed existing tools that help users find meeting points between multiple locations.
Even if conversational AI confirms ambiguous locations, precision tasks still require multiple conversational turns, whereas structured input resolves the same ambiguity instantly.
@shaspaz
This is based on straight-line distance. Factoring in actual road routes would make the midpoint much more practical for real travel.
@anfashaw9270
This has too many steps. Can't keep track of all the steps!
@gaelrodgers3805
How do I find the midpoint between 3 or more points?
@mpiloz8601
this would be great... If we were birds
Google Maps Midpoint Finder
Overview
Reimagining how Google Maps supports shared decision-making through midpoint-based place discovery.
My Role
UX Designer
Scope
End to end experience
Timeline
3 weeks
Setting the Context
Coordinating a meeting point between people in different locations is often more complicated than expected. People are left manually comparing routes, estimating travel times, and searching for a place that feels equally convenient for everyone involved.
Despite navigation tools making travel easier, finding a fair and practical midpoint remains a fragmented and time-consuming process.
What does meetup coordination look like today?
From a sample size of 53 survey participants and 14 interviews,
88.7%
of people coordinate meetups across the city at least a few times a month.
84.9%
of people rely on navigation apps at least a few times a week.
7 in every 10 people
find it difficult to identify a convenient meeting point.
What shapes the way people choose meeting locations?
To understand the problem, interviews were conducted across in person and remote settings.
Shared Convenience
TRAVEL EQUITY
People like locations where travel effort feels equally distributed. Fairness matters as much as distance.
Meeting Context
PURPOSE & TIMING
A midpoint works when venues match the purpose of the meeting and are open at the required time.
More People, More Variables
GROUP SIZE & PREFERENCE
As more people are added, midpoint selection becomes increasingly shaped by individual constraints and preferences.
Known areas vs. new zones
FAMILIARITY
People gravitate toward familiar areas, even when fairer options exist. Better midpoints require trust in the system.
Initial Hypothesis/ Goal
By this stage, preliminary research had already provided an early understanding of the problem space and the factors influencing how people choose meeting locations.
Enabling users to discover and evaluate places between multiple locations may
reduce the friction of coordinating meeting points and planning travel stops.
How do people coordinate and decide where to meet?
The current scenario
Pain Points
Users switch between multiple tools (Maps, Zomato, chat).
Midpoint tools fail to support venue evaluation.
Travel convenience for each participant is hard to compare.
Opportunities
Combine midpoint calculation and venue discovery in one interface.
Surface venues near the midpoint with ratings, filters and know before you go.
Visualize travel time for each participant to every venue.
Where Existing Solutions Fall Short
To better understand the current landscape, I analysed existing tools that help users find meeting points between multiple locations.
WhatsHalfway calculates a geographic midpoint, then redirects users to a Google Maps search for venues near that area (e.g. “restaurants near Road No. 3, Banjara Hills”). Since the original locations are no longer part of the search, users can’t easily compare travel convenience.
While MeetWays successfully maps the route midpoint, it does not surface specific locations or venue recommendations around that point.
Midpointr’s paid venue suggestions introduce a high trust barrier for a relatively low-stakes task, leading users to default to known restaurants and familiar platforms.
How might we
How might we help people quickly discover convenient places between multiple locations so that coordinating where to meet becomes faster and easier?
Meet Halfways
The right recommendations for every meetup.
Plan your meetup
Add everyone's locations and tell us what you're in the mood for.
Curated recommendations for your meetup
Balanced for convenience, relevance, and travel.
Compare distances
Compare commute times at a glance and make better meetup decisions.
Found great places? Share and decide together.
Save places to a shared list where everyone can vote, react, and add their own suggestions.
Why not use Ask Maps?
Ask Maps is great for discovery. A dedicated Midpoint Finder is optimized for coordinating between known locations.
AI Ambiguity is dangerous in navigation
Navigation demands certainty: a wrong address match can send users miles away.
Conversation is ephemeral, features are persistent
Features remember frequent locations; chat requires re-establishing context every time.
Co-ordination is multi-party,
chat is single user
A shared interface supports collaborative decisions, not one-person conversations.
Discoverability through seeing, not knowing
A dedicated UI makes the feature obvious, so users discover it without knowing to ask.
Ideal scenario ( info arc)
To better understand the current landscape, I analysed existing tools that help users find meeting points between multiple locations.
testing, insights and fixes
To better understand the current landscape, I analysed existing tools that help users find meeting points between multiple locations.
Even if conversational AI confirms ambiguous locations, precision tasks still require multiple conversational turns, whereas structured input resolves the same ambiguity instantly.
@shaspaz
This is based on straight-line distance. Factoring in actual road routes would make the midpoint much more practical for real travel.
@anfashaw9270
This has too many steps. Can't keep track of all the steps!
@gaelrodgers3805
How do I find the midpoint between 3 or more points?
@mpiloz8601
this would be great... If we were birds
