CREATING NEW ROUTES

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Inhaltsverzeichnis 1 Illustration 2 Context 3 Problem statement 4 Problem description with forces 5 Examples 6 Solution 7 Diagram 8 References 9 Literature and Links

Illustration

Context

…you want to build a navigation tool with which people amongst other things can plan routes - PLANNING A ROUTE.

In most cases all route information has to be entered first.

Problem statement

If a route has not been saved to ROUTE FAVORITES it has to be created first. Creation of a route demands time, knowledge and patience from the user. How can a navigation system support the user in creating a route best by reducing the factors mentioned above?

Problem description with forces

If a user travels a route for the first time she has to enter all information like departure (if not determined via GPS), destination, possibly intermediate stations and other factors for route calculation.

Each new route has different demands on the system and the way of entering the needed data. Sometimes the user has a concrete address where she wants to go, some other time she just wants to find a nice restaurant and another time she only has an idea of how the street name could sound like or she only knows an area on a map where the address is somewhere in.

The desired kind of a route can vary. Maybe the user wants the fastest way or the shortest one. Sometimes intermediate stations should also be considered as well as some areas or road types should be avoided.

Altogether the user wants to be very flexible in communicating the system her departing location, the destination, possible other waypoints and the way of calculation a route.

Examples

On the CeBIT 2003 eight navigation systems for mobile devices where analyzed for their features and interface design [2].

All tested systems provided different functions for planning a route. The means to enter the information however differed widely across the systems. They included text entry, list selection, map selection, points of interest, address book selection, favorites etc.

Solution

Therefore:

Provide means for entering all information possibly needed to define and refine a route.

Be careful not to confuse the user with all the different input means. They should be alternatives but must be as intuitive to use as plain text entry.

Make planning a route a clear, fast and easy to use task that can be solved one or another way, with or without advanced creation features.

Diagram

References

When creating a new route, a user has to decide what type of route (e.g. shortest, fastest etc.) she needs - ROUTE TYPES.

For entering information about departure, destination and interstations, the level of detail for planning a route has to be defined - LEVEL OF DETAIL.

If special areas like highways that require a toll should be avoided, means to enter these areas are needed as well - EVASION.

Literature and Links

1. SMARTPATH City Version 1.10 (161); www.navman-mobile.com/html/city-pc.htm <LI>Gibbert, R. (2003): Funktionen von Navigationssystemen auf mobilen Endgeräten - Auswertung der Untersuchung von der CeBit 2003 (unpublished), Fraunhofer IAO, Stuttgart, Germany </OL>