Requirements of the Google Maps System

Modern mobile users rely on map applications to navigate unfamiliar streets, check live traffic, estimate travel times, and discover nearby places. Whether walking to a café or commuting to work, users expect accurate directions, responsive interactions, and consistent performance, even when network conditions or device capabilities vary.

Designing a mobile mapping application like Google Maps requires coordinating real-time GPSGlobal Positioning System tracking, live route updates, and quick responses to environmental changes. All of this must be accomplished while managing mobile-specific constraints such as limited bandwidth, unstable signals, and diverse screen sizes.

Before discussing the functional and nonfunctional requirements of a system like Google Maps, it is essential to understand the core design problem in a mobile context.

Understanding the design problem

Designing a mobile mapping system like Google Maps means enabling fast, accurate, and resilient location-based services. Mobile devices often operate with limited connectivity and rely on GPS signals that can fluctuate in dense urban areas, underground environments, or remote regions. Despite these challenges, users expect the app to respond instantly to route changes, traffic updates, and movement without requiring manual refresh or intervention.

The core challenge is to deliver continuous, high-precision navigation and contextual location services while remaining lightweight and efficient on mobile hardware. This challenge breaks down into two main goals:

• The system must ...