If that was the author's point, then they totally failed to convey it. The title is "users prefer less straightforward ux", and the transition point in the article is the author coming to the startling conclusion that users like a "puzzle".

This is their current understanding of what happened:

> So, despite it taking objectively longer for users to get their answers, they loved it.

What they completely fail to understand is that it doesn't take longer for users to get their answers. The map is faster, objectively faster, at solving the problem that the user actually has. The designer here missed that point.