Interaction weaknesses of personal navigation devices

Abstract

Automotive navigation systems, especially portable navigation devices (PNDs), are gaining popularity worldwide. Drivers increasingly rely on these devices to guide them to their destination. Some follow them almost blindly, with devastating consequences if the routing goes wrong. Wrong messages as well as superfluous and unnecessary messages can potentially reduce the credibility of those devices. We performed a comparative study with current PNDs from different vendors and market segments, in order to assess the extent of this problem and how it is related to the interaction between device and driver. In this paper, we report the corresponding results and identify multiple interaction weaknesses that are prevalent throughout all tested device classes.

Understanding "Death by GPS"

“…The projects in this research thread that most directly motivated our work are those of Hipp et al [18] and Brown and Laurier [6]. Both studies considered the "troubles" drivers encountered with in-car GPS devices in typical driving situations.…”

“…Both studies considered the "troubles" drivers encountered with in-car GPS devices in typical driving situations. Hipp et al [18] conducted a traditional user interface evaluation to compare the performances of different types of in-car navigation systems on the same route. They identified unexpressed routing preferences, failure to understand intentional detours from planned routes, and the lack of real-time traffic information as the common interaction weakness of commercial navigators (with the latter now being fixed in most modern navigation technologies).…”

“…The geographic human-computer interaction ("GeoHCI") [17] literature includes a relatively large body of work that examines how people use GPS-based navigation technologies in standard scenarios and in the course of their everyday lives (e.g. [7,18,21,27,28]). However, no work has focused on the increasingly large number of catastrophic incidents associated with these technologies.…”

Gravity

“…Schreiber studied that the function of a map and its aesthetic perception heavily depend on the user's situational cognitive load [11]. Another research about navigation usability revealed that when using PNDs, wrong messages can potentially reduce the credibility of those devices [6]. Jensen suggested that different output configurations-audio, visual, and audiovisual-of a GPS system affect driving behavior and performance [7].…”

Wikipedia Entries as a Source of Car Navigation Landmarks

“…Recent research and studies show that the human mind can be distracted while driving and listening to the verbal route instructions or concentrating on the map that appear on the system's screen (Hipp et al, 2010). Such that the navigators do not pay attention to their immediate surrounding environment.…”