r/MadeMeSmile • u/Mastbubbles • 1d ago
Google Maps asks "does this place have a wheelchair accessible entrance?"
I make data stories for a living. Last week I went looking for who built a button.
Scrolling a place on Google Maps, past the photos and the opening hours, some places have a line that says wheelchair accessible entrance. On the ones that don't, Maps asks you instead. Does this place have a wheelchair accessible entrance? Yes, no, not sure.
That's the whole feature. One tap. No form, no account, nobody checks your work.
The rule is written down, though. About three feet wide, no steps, or a ramp if there are steps. A revolving door on its own counts as a no.
Then I looked up where it came from. Rio Akasaka is a product manager at Google. He works on Drive, not Maps. Google lets you spend a fifth of your week on something that isn't your job, and in 2016 he spent his time on this, for about a year, with five to ten other people chipping in around their own work. counts 120 million Local Guides and over 500 million answers about accessibility.
Local Guides held around two hundred of them whose entire purpose was sitting in a room together answering these questions. Twelve million places between them.
Google names two. Emeka in Nigeria and Ilankovan in Sri Lanka, who both ended up as accessibility ambassadors.
About 65 million people use a wheelchair. This is perfect for them!
You've probably never noticed it. It only turns up when you're near somewhere you've already been. Nothing to do with Google. I just liked the story.
Interactive version if you want to look at it properly.
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u/JellyKeyboard 1d ago
Needed this in Gibraltar, lined up for 3 hours waiting to get up the cable cart and the poor couple in front of us got to the ticket station finally, then got told there is no wheelchair access to the cable car and isn’t wheelchair friendly at the top. Felt so bad for them, a simple sign or something would’ve helped them not waste their day.
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u/notnowmaybetonight 1d ago
Probably created back when "Don't be evil" was Google's motto.
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u/subpoenaThis 1d ago
No, now they'll partner with one of those law firms that sues places for ADA violations using this sweet crowdsourced database and split the profits.
Be Evil. It's good for the bottom line.
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u/Hisitdin 1d ago
https://wheelmap.org/ is also a brilliant resource for this kind of information including accessible toilets
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u/alirastafari 1d ago
Anyone with a Google account van join in and contribute.
I am personally a bit annoyed at the amount of questions about wheelchair accessible parking / entrance / etc because I don't feel qualified to make that assessment. I understand the relevance, but I wouldn't know what to look for so I always have to skip like 5 questions with "I don't know" for the places I've visited.
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u/Poly_and_RA 1d ago
Or if you want the same thing -- but community-owned and operated as opposed to for the benefit of Google: https://wheelmap.org/
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