Pegman's Story on Google Street View

If you've ever used the Street View feature of the Google map service, then you definitely know this marker in the form of a little peg man. The standard yellow Pegman figure is shown when viewing panoramas of most streets, there are also several Easter eggs. And for sure you didn’t even think about how much effort its final form required. After all, even so seemingly a small detail was actually developed for a long time and carefully, and until today Pegman had tried many options.

The marker appeared in response to a noticeable disorientation effect called the metro effect. In the same way as in underground transport after exiting the car, it was impossible to understand where you are and in which direction of the flat map you are looking at the panoramic 3D view. A yellow line was added to the overview, showing the direction of the detour of the street with a panoramic camera, but this did not help much.

The first marker was an ordinary eye. At first it was impossible to understand which way he was looking, so a small arrow was added to the eye. Andy Szibalski, the author of the original marker, now working in the Android team, says that using the eyeball as a marker did not cause pleasant emotions - who would like to throw part of the human body onto the map? The marker was also too soft. It was unclear whether the eyeball should react to placing it on the map or not. Then Andy asked for the help of Ryan Hermik (today - the head of the doodle team).

Why not a marker to be female? Feminist Ryan created a peg woman who did an excellent job of her task. Clothing, hair and bends of the marker body made it easy to understand which way she was looking. The volume marker was a huge step forward.

If Pegwuman was used today, it would look something like this. At Google, however, they quickly noticed that the more a marker looks like a real person, the more distracting it is. Users began to build associations by comparing the little man with living people - relatives and acquaintances, and after that they could not understand what the image of this person does on the web service map.

Therefore, the designers went to the other extreme, and created a completely non-humanoid character. Tofumen came out angular and only vaguely resembled a living person.

The personality contained in the facial expression and emotions of the character has been slightly changed. The character was given a blue color.

Blue, purple, white, and green were tried. In the end, the designers settled on orange, as the most unbiased color, not associated with any race or nationality.

Designers also experimented with other metaphors for photographing, looking and pointing.

For example, instead of an arrow, a small flashlight was offered in the character’s hand.

As a result, it was decided that the little man, like Gambi , the main character of the American animated series of the same name, would hang helplessly in the capture of a god-like user.

Like a good haiku, the image became simpler and simpler. In the design of Pegman there were only elements necessary for communication with the user, all the excess was cut out.

The marker little man is featured in many Street View promotional videos, for example, in this, which is also interesting by the singing of Ryan Germik himself. Like any other Google product, Pegman has many easter eggs. When viewing certain places or simply using maps at certain times of the year, the standard figure will change to another character. All of the following either never worked, or no longer work - the developers believe that a good Easter egg should be rare and temporary.

For example, during his first Halloween, Pegman turned into a witch, when moving a marker, the icon of a flight on a broomstick was displayed .

An icon with a mother and a child was created for Mother's Day, but it has never been used.

On April 1, 2009, Pegman was replaced by Gatapin , a character on Japanese television.

During St. Patrick's Day, a leprechaun on a rainbow was displayed instead of the usual marker.

There are a large number of Easter eggs still working: an astronaut figurine in a suit when viewing a panorama of the landing strip for the Space Shuttles , a Lego figurine, which a peg man calls in, next to California Legoland . Pegman dresses up as a tennis player while watching Wimbledom , the stadium of the United States Tennis Association and the French Open tennis court . In Antarctica, Pegman replaces Penguin. In reality, the list of open and, as hinted at by Google, still unknown Easter eggs are much more than the above.

Based on materials from Justin Sharrock .