If you build a delivery, taxi or fleet app on the Google Navigation SDK, you’ve so far had Google Maps’ turn-by-turn navigation inside your app, but with a fixed screen layout. Your own buttons, job cards and workflows had to be built around it. On 20 August 2026, Google changed that with the layout customization framework for the Navigation SDK, now available as an experimental release on Android. As a Google Premier Partner, we’ve summarised what it is and why it matters for mobility companies.
A quick recap: what is the Navigation SDK?
The Navigation SDK lets you embed the full Google Maps navigation experience in your own mobile app: routes, traffic information, voice and on-screen guidance, rerouting. Drivers no longer need to switch between your app and Google Maps. Everything happens on one screen, with your trips, your stops and your business logic.
Until now, it was mainly valued for the reliability of the navigation itself. The limitation was the interface: a static view in which you could show or hide elements, but not design your own layout.
What the new framework does
Google researched how drivers use their apps across enterprise fleets worldwide. The conclusion: developers don’t want a fixed layout, but a flexible design system that reflects their brand and supports the driver. The answer is a framework that brings two visual layers together in real time:
- Google’s map layer: the navigation, the route, the traffic information.
- Your app’s workflow layer: jobs, delivery confirmations, customer contact, the next trip.
The navigation elements have been broken down into separate building blocks that you position yourself: information cards, the speed limit indicator, floating buttons and more. You decide where they sit, when they appear and which take priority.
Context-aware screens
The most interesting part is that the layout can change with the phase of the trip. A driver’s focus shifts constantly: motorway guidance, a traffic jam, an upcoming stop. With the framework, you can design each of those moments differently:
- On the motorway, navigation takes centre stage and the rest of the interface stays calm.
- In a hazardous situation, the safety warning takes visual priority over everything else.
- At a delivery, the map moves to the background and your own confirmation screen appears: parcel scanned, signature, photo, and straight on to the next trip.
The framework also lets you adjust the map’s visual centre to the elements visible at that moment. When a card appears at the bottom, the vehicle stays neatly in view instead of disappearing behind your own interface. Small details, but exactly the details that determine whether a driver enjoys using your app or not.
Why this matters for Dutch mobility companies
Delivery services, couriers, home care organisations with many trips, taxi dispatchers and installation companies with field staff all share the same problem. Drivers want to tap as little as possible and think about the app as little as possible. Every second of distraction behind the wheel is one too many.
Until now, the choice was either Google’s reliable navigation with a generic interface, or a fully custom interface with self-built or less reliable navigation. That compromise is gone. You keep the turn-by-turn guidance drivers know and build an experience around it in your own brand style that shows exactly what’s needed at that moment.
Good to know before you start
In all fairness, the framework is still experimental and only available on the Android Navigation SDK. An iOS version hasn’t been announced yet. If you’re building an app for both platforms, now is the time to experiment and prepare your design, not to overhaul your entire production app. Google publishes sample designs and implementations on GitHub, which make a good starting point.
Sources from Google:
How can we help?
As a Google Premier Partner specialising in Location-Based Services, we help mobility and logistics companies with the Navigation SDK and the other Google Maps Platform Mobility Solutions. From assessing whether the Navigation SDK fits your operation, through a proof of concept with the new layout framework, to a full integration with your planning and dispatch systems.
Do your drivers still switch between your software and Google Maps? Or are you running into the limits of your current navigation interface? Get in touch, we’re happy to help.
