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For some reason people seem to suck at following driving directions on maps apps.
I don't really have much difficulty with them, but I've recently been around a lot of people that do. They're constantly looking back and forth between their phone and the road, second guessing which turn they need to take, inevitably missing turns and getting rerouted down ridiculous side roads. Driving is already a fairly complicated endeavor, and adding the need to interpret a complicated UI doesn't make that any easier.
Perhaps the problem is that the phone is a different context that has to be mapped onto real world. That context mapping process takes time, especially for those that are less spatially aware. In other words, directions aren't presented in a format that's natively interpretable by the driver. Someone pointing and saying "turn right here" would be a much more native instruction set, since the directions come in a context that matches the driver's own.
Another problem is that people don't have an understanding of the route beyond the current state that's presented to them. When I'm driving somewhere familiar, I know that the sequence of turns I need to make--I can picture the route and play through it in my head. When following directions I'm just presented with my current location and the next turn I need to make. I completely rely on the app to guide me through the route without needing to know anything about it. The cost of making a mistake is very low; the app will reroute and I will continue following it turn-by-turn.
It seems like there's a lot to improve on with driving directions; figuring out how to get them into a more native format would vastly improve their effectiveness. It's an interesting design[1] problem in that it relies so much on understanding the mental state[2] of the driver.
Last updated Mon Jan 10 2022 in Centreville, VA
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