If you’ve ever wondered why Google Maps labels look more readable than the labels used by Bing Maps or Yahoo Maps, Justin O’Beirne has some answers.
“The white outlines of Google’s city labels are thicker, and you can’t see maps’ background details (roads, rivers, etc.) behind them. (…) Google typically uses more classes of city labels, at a time, than the other two sites. (…) While the primary difference between each site’s city label classes is their size, Google takes this one step further by also using color to differentiate its city label classes. In that, the smallest city labels on Google’s maps are significantly lighter in color than the largest ones. These lighter labels, in turn, enable smaller cities to fade into background, while allowing the larger cities to stand out.”
{ Image licensed as Creative Commons by Justin O’Beirne. }
