Navigation Naturally Speaking
Recently I had a discussion with a friend who is working on mobile pervasive computing. We both agreed that microphone and loudspeaker are the most underrated I/O devices of smartphones. Unfortunately this is particularly true for the iPhone. The slick touch interface and excellent screen are extremely tempting as the main interface. Sadly also for new turn-by-turn navigation software. This might be good enough in a car on the highway but doesn’t work well when you are in city traffic or on foot. Another, more fundamental problem, of navigation software is that it tempts the user to rely on it blindly. But does it really have to be this way?
I have a dream of a navigation aid that feels natural, is more useful, and less incapacitating. It should aid me in finding my way in a flexible manner without forcing its route on me. These requirements already make one thing clear: looking at a screen is not an option. The interaction has to be much less obtrusive. Spoken instructions seem to be the best solution. But here it isn’t enough to tell me to take a right in 50, 20, 5 meters.
Why not? For example, often I don’t need to take the shortest route. I would like to walk and just “happen to find”1 my way. The navigator needs to leave room for a certain amount of fuzziness: “The location is about 15 min walk ahead of you.” There is then also not necessarily a need to calculate a route at all. Instead I might prefer to navigate by landmarks: “Walk towards the church tower” or “Cross the river and then walk right”.
Am I asking for too much? I guess from a technology point of view it should be possible. Most maps already have useful landmarks. Other information is also available. For example, the navigation software knows the position of the sun/moon, it can find out the weather at my location and can make an educated guess on whether it might be useful for me to know whether I should “have the sun on my left” or walk “with the wind in my back”. 2 The data is there, someone just needs to make use of it.
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