INTERSTATIONS

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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 have decided which LEVEL OF DETAIL you want to provide for CREATING NEW ROUTES. Now you have to think about how users can comfortably enter interstations to their routes.

Problem statement

How can a user tell the system what interstations should be included into a planned route?

Problem description with forces

Users have different requirements on entering information about interstations of their routes. Sometimes they have an exact address they want to enter, the other time they want to stop at a special location on a map and sometimes they are looking for special points of interest like a gas stations to stop at. So it is important for a navigation or route planning system to provide different input means for interstations.

But if there are diverse input means it must be clear to users what the different functions do, when they should be applied and where they can be used.

As users do not want to be limited in the number of interstations, it is also important that they can add as many interstations to a route as they want to. This is especially necessary for people like traveling salesmen who have to visit many destinations and therefore need the best or shortest route.

Examples

Although interstations are an important feature for route planning and navigation systems, they are not provided by all available products. While desktop applications like Map&Guide [2] mostly support any number of interstations, some navigation systems on mobile devices completely do without this feature.

In the CeBIT 2003 analysis [3] on navigation systems for mobile devices only half of the eight analyzed systems provided functions for adding interstations.

Business MobileNavigator [4] is one of these products.

Here users can add as many waypoints as they want to.

In SMARTPATH City users are limited in the number of interstations. The system only allows adding two stopovers to a route.

Solution

Therefore:

Provide versatile and easy to use functions for adding interstations to a route.

Versatile means that information can be entered in different ways, e.g.:

• Text entry <LI>List selection <LI>Selection from address book <LI>Selection from favorites <LI>Map selection <LI>Selection from Points of interest </UL> Do not limit the number of interstations possible to allow users creating any route they want to create. Make the functions easy accessible and intuitive to use.
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  Diagram

  

  
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  References

  How the different input means should be designed and what recommendations they have is described in-depth in TEXT ENTRY, LIST SELECTION, ADDRESS BOOK, FAVORITE ADDRESSES, MAP SELECTION and POINTS OF INTEREST.

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  Literature and Links

  <LI>SMARTPATH City, Version 1.10 (161); http://www.navman-mobile.com/html/city-pc.htm <LI>Map&Guide GmbH; http://www.mapandguide.com <LI>Gibbert, R. (2003): Funktionen von Navigationssystemen auf mobilen Endgeräten - Auswertung der Untersuchung von der CeBit 2003 (unpublished), Fraunhofer IAO, Stuttgart, Germany <LI>NAVIGON GmbH; Screenshot taken from http://www.navigon.de in June 2003