In progress
Ship Maps
A cartography and map UI foundation for Carnival's HUB App, designed to move onboard maps from static deck-map images toward a scalable, interactive map experience with pinch-and-zoom, POIs, search, zone-aware orientation, deck detail, and future location-aware capabilities.
B.Context
Today, the HUB App map experience is based on static deck-map assets — essentially image-based maps such as PNG, JPEG, or PDF-style deck views. These maps help guests view the layout of a ship, but they are limited as an interactive product experience.
Static maps can show where venues and spaces are located, but they do not behave like a modern map. They are harder to search, harder to update, harder to scale consistently across ships, and limited when it comes to pinch-and-zoom, progressive detail, dynamic POIs, category filtering, zones, and future location-aware features.
Ship Maps was created to move Carnival toward a more robust interactive map foundation. The goal was to define a scalable cartography and map UI system that could make onboard maps easier to explore today, while opening the door for future capabilities like better navigation options, nearest-POI logic, location-aware ordering, delivery-zone validation, and ship-area delivery.
C.The Problem
Carnival ships are large, multi-deck environments with restaurants, bars, theaters, pools, shops, cabins, guest services, elevators, stairwells, and open-deck spaces spread across different layouts.
A guest may know they want to find food, a pool, a bar, a show, a shop, or guest services — but static deck maps make that discovery feel more like looking at a diagram than using a modern product.
The challenge was to turn complex ship layouts into a clearer mobile map experience. The map needed to support exploration, orientation, POIs, categories, labels, search, zones, and future location-aware use cases without overwhelming guests on a small screen.
A useful ship map is not only a visual asset. It is information architecture, visual hierarchy, cartography, data structure, and interaction design working together.
D.My Role
- ✓Helped define the cartography and map UI direction for the HUB App
- ✓Worked on representative deck studies for Deck 5, Deck 10, and Deck 12
- ✓Helped define three zoom levels: .5x “Ship Overview,” 1x “Deck Overview,” and 2x “Detailed”
- ✓Designed Map Mode and List View patterns for browsing ship locations
- ✓Explored search, deck selection, category browsing, and map controls inside the HUB App UI
- ✓Designed pinch-and-zoom interaction states, including how the UI behaves while guests are actively interacting with the map
- ✓Supported POI, label, category, search, and zone-aware orientation behavior
- ✓Reviewed map styling for mobile readability and guest comprehension
- ✓Helped translate complex deck-map information into a cleaner guest-facing map language
- ✓Helped connect the map foundation to future location-aware ordering and ship-area delivery use cases
E.Design Challenge
The biggest design challenge was deciding what the map should show at each level of guest intent.
- ✓At a distance, guests need orientation — the shape of the deck, major landmarks, and where they are on the ship.
- ✓At a closer level, guests need recognizable venues, amenities, POIs, categories, labels, and zones.
- ✓At the most detailed level, guests can benefit from seating, deck textures, pool areas, furniture patterns, and environmental details — but only if that detail helps instead of overwhelming the map.
The product needed a progressive reveal system: show less when guests need orientation, then reveal more as they zoom in and look for specific places.
F.Defining the Cartography System
A major part of the work was defining the visual map language across representative decks and zoom levels. Deck 5, Deck 10, and Deck 12 were used to pressure-test different ship environments and make sure the cartography system could work beyond a single idealized deck.
Representative decks
5
Deck 5
Represented dense indoor guest areas, with multiple venues, corridors, and POIs close together. This helped test label hierarchy, POI density, venue naming, and how much information could appear before the map became visually noisy.
10
Deck 10
Represented a high-traffic guest deck with pool, food, beverage, and outdoor circulation areas. This helped test landmarks, deck textures, open-air spaces, food and beverage visibility, and how guests might scan a busy area while looking for nearby options.
12
Deck 12
Represented upper-deck recreational and open-air spaces, where landmarks, pools, activity zones, textures, and environmental details help guests orient themselves through recognizable ship features, not just labels.
Three zoom levels
.5x
Ship Overview
Shows the full deck shape and major landmarks so guests can understand the deck at a glance.
1x
Deck Overview
Shows a closer deck view with major zones, key venues, and primary POIs.
2x
Detailed
Reveals finer cartographic details such as seating, deck textures, pool areas, furniture patterns, smaller POIs, and environmental details where useful.
This progressive reveal approach helped balance visual richness with mobile readability. The goal was not to expose every deck-plan detail at once, but to reveal the right amount of information for the guest's current level of intent.
G.Map UI: Map Mode, List View, and Pinch-and-Zoom States
Beyond the cartography itself, Ship Maps also needed a mobile UI layer that made the map usable inside the HUB App.
The experience included a Map Mode for visual exploration and a List View for guests who prefer to browse places by category or name. This gave guests two ways to find locations: visually through the deck map, or structurally through searchable lists of venues and amenities.
The UI also accounted for pinch-and-zoom behavior. During map interaction, the experience needed to prioritize the map canvas so guests could move, zoom, and inspect the deck without unnecessary interface clutter. Once interaction stopped, controls and context could return so guests could continue searching, changing decks, opening location details, or switching views.
This helped define Ship Maps as more than a static map replacement. It became a mobile product experience with map exploration, search, list browsing, deck navigation, and interaction states working together.
H.Zone-Aware Orientation
Some Carnival ship experiences already use zones as part of how areas are understood. Ship Maps needed to account for that existing model instead of relying only on exact locations, deck numbers, or venue names.
Zones can help support orientation and future location-aware use cases, but they also need to be handled carefully so they do not add clutter. The map system needed to support zones alongside decks, POIs, categories, labels, and search.
I.Solution
The Ship Maps direction introduced a stronger foundation for interactive onboard maps.
1
Interactive map foundation
Moves beyond static deck images toward a scalable, interactive map.
2
Representative deck studies
Decks 5, 10, and 12 pressure-tested the system across ship environments.
3
Three-level zoom model
Progressive detail across Ship Overview, Deck Overview, and Detailed.
4
Map Mode and List View
Visual and structured ways to find locations.
5
Pinch-and-zoom states
Clear behavior during and after map interaction.
6
POI and label structure
Venues, icons, labels, and search organized for discovery.
7
Zone-aware behavior
Supports existing zones without adding clutter.
8
Mobile-first readability
Reveals the right detail at the right zoom level.
9
Future location-aware support
Foundation for navigation, nearest-POI, and ship-area delivery.
Visual map language
Cartography system
A visual system for translating static deck maps into clearer onboard map experiences — using color, labels, icons, and POI hierarchy to make different ship areas easier to scan.
Progressive reveal
Zoom-level strategy
I explored how map detail could progressively adapt as guests zoomed in — from full-ship orientation, to deck-level understanding, to detailed POI discovery.
Map UI and interaction states
Ship Maps UI concepts
Map Mode, List View, and pinch-and-zoom interaction states — showing how guests browse, search, and orient across decks and zoom levels.
K.What I Learned
Ship Maps taught me that maps are not just illustrations. A useful map is a product system.
The hardest decisions were about hierarchy: what guests need to see at .5x, what becomes useful at 1x, what should only appear at 2x, how Map Mode and List View support different guest behaviors, and how zones can support orientation without adding clutter.
The best map experience is not about showing everything. It is about showing the right information at the right level of detail.
