We need to make digital navigation tools more human 鈥� here's how
This article by , Senior Lecturer in Cognitive Linguistics, was originally published on . Read the .
Imagine you鈥檙e in a city you don鈥檛 know, and need to find the way to the train station. You ask a stranger in the street, and she answers: 鈥淲alk east for 144ft, turn right towards the main road for 26ft, continue straight onto main road for 377ft. Your destination will be on the left.鈥� You would probably think she sounded robotic 鈥� more like a digital route-finding system than a human being. And you鈥檇 be right.
Most digital navigation systems, whether online (such as Google Maps) or location-based (such as a GPS), give directions based on precise , such as measurements in feet or metres. By contrast, humans are much more vague 鈥� they might just say to head in a particular direction 鈥渇or a minute or so鈥�. And instead of being given a compass direction, you鈥檇 expect a human to point you in the right direction with a .
The upshot is that while a friendly stranger will tell you to 鈥渢urn right at the castle鈥�, digital systems seem to using landmark information.
Lost without landmarks
This can be a problem. As wayfinders, we orient towards landmarks: highly visible buildings, or other salient objects, which we can in a description and recognise in the environment. We don鈥檛 like to rely on numbers and abstract spatial directions, and we find instructions such as 鈥済o east for 144ft, then straight for 377ft鈥� to be utterly counterintuitive. This isn鈥檛 how human beings think or talk about space.
This isn鈥檛 such a big issue if your purpose-built GPS is giving you a constant visual prompt, and a countdown until your turn, as many in-car devices do. But if you鈥檙e using a set of instructions that you鈥檝e saved or printed out from an online source, it is very difficult to say where 377ft ends 鈥� unless you happen to be carrying a distance meter.
In fact, we don鈥檛 need precise turn-by-turn information at all. In the case of many little streets in a city centre, for instance, we can simply head that we know the goal to be. Alternatively, we can rely on the to guide us, even if that means taking a slightly longer route. In short, we use to avoid having to remember all the details, or having to calculate the optimal path. These strategies make wayfinding easier, and we often incorporate them when giving directions. This way, we don鈥檛 overload others with information, but usually provide just the right .
Digital systems are far less considerate, and far less flexible. Whenever humans recognise a particular part of a route to , they will for guidance. A system, however, will simply continue giving information in the same format: 鈥渆ast for 144ft, straight for 377ft鈥�.
Trust issues
Imagine that the route you鈥檝e been given instructs you to 鈥渢urn left at the castle鈥�. But when you get to the castle, you find that there鈥檚 only a road to the right, or an option to turn left later. Now you鈥檝e got a choice: either turn right at the castle, or turn left 鈥� but not at the castle. The route giver was obviously mistaken 鈥� hardly a big surprise.
When a stranger asks for directions, most people find that the perfect route description doesn鈥檛 naturally come straight to mind. Even with excellent local knowledge, humans never really have a complete 鈥溾��. Instead, our minds operate economically: we remember what we need to, and provide the when asked for it, as far as possible.
As a result, route directions might not always be entirely correct, and they are certainly . There鈥檚 a lot more information in any spatial environment than we can possibly include in a route instruction. All this might easily lead to the ambiguous situation you鈥檙e now confronted with: when you have to decide whether to go with the spatial direction (left), or rely on the landmark (castle). What will you do?
Research shows that the that your decision depends on where the instructions came from. If your source was a human being, you鈥檙e most likely to rely on the landmark. Your friend said 鈥渁t the castle鈥� 鈥� so that鈥檚 where you鈥檒l turn. After all, she might have imagined coming from a different direction, or just confused left and right, as so many people do.
But if your source was a digital system, the situation is different. Such technology is highly unlikely to imagine coming from a different direction, or confuse left and right. But when it comes to landmarks, you might be a bit sceptical. Most current systems don鈥檛 have landmark information 鈥� or if they do, there鈥檚 always the possibility that their database is inaccurate or out of date. For whatever reason, you鈥檙e less likely to trust navigation systems to incorporate landmarks correctly into their routes.
If developers hope to create intuitive and reliable route generation systems, they should reflect to the people who are using them. This means adopting the natural concepts and strategies we use for wayfinding, as much as possible. Adding long-standing landmarks into the mix is a great place to start 鈥� indeed, it looks like key developers are .
Publication date: 15 December 2015