Are Sat-Nav Systems Becoming Information Overload? 186
curtS writes "The Economist's tech editor reviews the ever-more-detailed assistance of mobile GPS devices, and wonders if the attention-sucking visual complexity isn't more trouble than it's worth. He contrasts the simplicity of London's Underground map (not directionally accurate but visually easy to understand) and his own habit of dimming the display and using the audio commands for guidance."
.no (Score:3, Funny)
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I would argue that. Rand McNally road atlases were my constant companion for years. It's hard to recall how my internal mapping and/or memory of Rand McNally evolved in the first couple years - but today, I can navigate anywhere on the North American continent (minus Mexico) without a map. I can leave my house, and go to any major city without referencing a map at all. Some small town, I don't know of? Ten minutes with that atlas, and I can drive to it without looking again. To find an address, I'll c
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They only hold your hand as much as you let them. If you chose to follow their directions for every turn, that's your choice. If you only want
Re:.no (Score:5, Interesting)
In May and June this year, I went to Germany and Holland with my father. We rented an Audi with a GPS built in. It was a gift from the gods of navigation. Without it we would have been totally inept, and neither of us had used one before. I generally ran the nav system while he drove (because I picked up the fine points of the system quicker than he did).
One day, in Germany on the Autobahn (can't remember exactly where right now but I do have notes on it) there was a huge traffic jam. I had no idea that traffic there gets like that. But everything was backed up. People shut off their cars and got out to chat. Nobody was moving, in either direction. Remember this is the Autobahn.
Anyway, two notable things happened. We decided to follow a small group of cars that were driving on the shoulder and trying to find a way out. This was probably illegal, but whatever. After getting off the main highway, we wound up alone somewhere. Check the GPS, we found exactly where we were (with the traffic lady letting us know that noone was moving) and it was one a dirt road. I zoomed in on the map, found the next nearest hamlet and we navigated there. Then I did that again and again, and we drove through about a dozen tiny villages. It was amazing. We saw old buildings that no tourist ever sees, and some had scars in them, maybe from WW2. Got to see a lot of neat things.
Later, back on the main highway, we were stopped at a light or something and the kid in the car behind us jumped out, came to my window and asked for directions to some town he was trying to reach. I used the gps and gave him what he needed. That was cool too.
GPS is not distracting. I found it very helpful. Witout it we never would have seen those off-the-beaten path villages.
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I'll see your European anecdote and raise you one. In 2005 I spent 4 weeks driving around Europe with my wife and parents. We had no GPS, but plenty of maps. We were able to find our way into and out of all sorts of out of the way places. The only trouble was trying to meet one cousin where we were waiting on one side of the freeway and he was waiting on the other side.
Now, I've always been good with maps, have a good sense of direction, and a good spacial sense. Not everyone is good with maps or navig
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And if you're that kind of person, it doesn't matter what kind of map you're following. GPS is nice because it knows where you are. Maps, you have to figure that out. Admittedly, it's not hard and should be a skill you have, but why do all your division longhand if you have a calculator?
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As not_my_name says - you seem to fit into a special group. Far to many people RELY on that GPS to tell them everything. Maybe if I were a bit younger - or, maybe if I were navigating Europe instead of North America - I might make similar use of GPS as you did. Or not. I might have the GPS in the car, but an atlas would still be spread across the passenger seat. Among other things, I want to "feel" how far away it is to the Italian border, or the Russian border, or the English Channel. That big map of
Driving alone? (Score:3, Insightful)
I might have the GPS in the car, but an atlas would still be spread across the passenger seat.
In your situation I might agree. However for me the choice is either use GPS or have my wife reading the map. Needless to say, GPS wins. ;)
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I like maps, too. I like to look at them, I like to connect the dots. I like the little bits of random knowledge that I pick up in doing so. My Dad taught me how to read a map before I even learned how to read English.
But I hate using maps when driving. In the car, I find them cumbersome, verbose, generally annoying, and difficult to remember.
To top it all off, I get lost very easily, for whatever reason. Back in the day, I used to even get lost at school. (Hey, we've all got problems.)
So, I use GPS.
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What's wrong in getting lost, sometimes, anyway? (Score:2)
In vast majority of cases you drive in known area; always the same route, more or less. I don't see how GPS helps here. Any possible setbacks due to choosing slightly wrong way are more than offset by the elasticity in choosing better way due to momentary traffic conditions.
Not sure how representative this part is, but - when NOT driving in known area I'm always never in a real hurry. In few cases when that might be true it's easy to pre-plan it...or even ask somebody along the way / make a quick phonecall
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The problem is when you ARE in a hurry... because you are in fast moving traffic, or you have to decide if THIS is the street you are supposed to turn on or its the next street. For such situations I find that only fully accurate maps AND a GPS receiver that isn't lagging 2 seconds behind or not able to figure out that they street it says is 300 feet ahead is actually the one that I am stopped at the light of work.
I do very much like the voice instructions, particularly when they give a sequence, e.g. "that
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It's still a bit "fuzzy" though; never mind wondering if, perhaps, when you have to turn in fast moving traffic it's usually some main road with proper, big signs; or when that particular street similar to every other matters you're close to destination anyway. I'm stressing more "are you really in such a hurry?". Which is more of a problem in itself; probably a lot reckless driving stems from people who "must get there sooner!" (and who knows if always relying on GPS doesn't contribute to late departure or
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Getting lost in European cities can mean a 15km drive to get back on track, when all left turns are forbidden for several km or after the wrong exit on the roundabout you're right on a freeway that has no option of stopping or turning for quite some time.
If you're on holiday, rent a GPS or take a GPS-phone with Open Street Maps with you. It will certainly save some headaches, hours of searching and confusion when overpasses become underpasses, tall buildings obstruct all possible landmarks and reading the d
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I live in the EU...
(though, to be fair, my judgment might be influenced by the thing that I have a big chance to be exposed either to Polish roads, which are an example of chaotic, highly complex system requiring trained wetware (with GPS maps often lagging a bit), or German ones with their supposed...perfection)
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When I was bicycling Poland several times about 20 years ago (1988 and 1989), we coined the term "polish kilometer", because the distance to the next town was more a rough estimate than everything else.
It could happen that the distance shown on the road signs was varying 2-3 km, and that the last "(Next Village) 2 km" sign was just in sight of the actual village limit sign.
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AFAIK the nomenclature was (is?) often to post distances to centers / particular point in given locality, no matter from which direction you are approaching.
When applied without much thought to typical PL village (which often was more or less a long chain of houses along one road, as you surely remember), this could cause such discrepancies.
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or even ask somebody along the way / make a quick phonecall to known local resident when close to destination and lost (also - they, or other people who often travel the route you are planning to take, know much more than GPS: which way is more pleasant)
Yeah, my friends love when I do that at 3am. More of a nuisance when I'm driving somewhere where I don't know anybody, and quite often don't speak the language. Just because GPS doesn't suit your lifestyle doesn't mean the rest of us shouldn't be using it.
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Where are you hurrying at 3am, when nobody is waiting for you at the destination area?
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I'd say we are more or less in an agreement, actually; you seem to use GPS in similar style to traditional methods. Certainly in agreement to what the summary is saying.
Re:What's wrong in getting lost, sometimes, anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
Or you could do what I do: just take the next exit and let the sat-nav figure out how to get you back on track. If it takes less than a second to do so, missing a couple streets isn't that big a deal, and there's almost certainly a lower attention-demanding route to wherever. Generally, the most complicated places are highways in traffic with left-exits and short spans.
But if you take any nearby exit, there's almost always a "street with many stoplights" that you can pretty much take your time on. Sat-nav also helps with tricky left turns on that street. Just turn right anywhere near your destination and let it recalculate a route for you.
The thing about sat nav is that it creates a new navigation paradigm. If you use it right it can really free you from worrying about where you are so you can concentrate on not hitting things. You don't have to drive straight to your destination without deviating from the route to avoid stopping and getting your bearings. Everywhere is like the areas you're familiar with, where if you miss a turn it's no big deal, you just go one of the other permutations you know all about.
Even if the machine's maps don't quite match up to reality, it's still no worse than when you're in your familiar area and you're trying out a permutation you're fuzzy on: Just turn off when it doesn't match up and get on a route that you know about. As long as you pay attention to the road, the worst thing that can happen is that it'll take longer to get where you're trying to go (unless where you're trying to go is in the middle of a block of roads that the sat-nav is not accurate on. But that's pretty rare.)
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I can imagine using GPS in 1 in a 100 chance that I'm slightly lost and few minutes will save me (though gmaps works perfectly well then too), but the way many people use GPS is exactly an example of what you suggest. C'mon...why do I see it often brightly lit, during night, in a car in front of me that is certainly from within 10km of small city with straightforward road system...and heading towards it, 1km from the destination, at the ubermain route)
And please, don't paint me as a luddite, especially in c
If you can't ignore the GPS (Score:3, Insightful)
Then you probably shouldn't be driving. Take the bus.
Re:If you can't ignore the GPS (Score:5, Interesting)
"Since a road closure, dozens of drivers have blithely followed directions from their satellite navigation systems, not realising that the recommended route goes through the ford.
Normally the water — the start of the River Avon — is about 2ft deep but it can swiftly double in depth after heavy rain.
Every day since the main B4040 was closed after a wall collapsed on April 8 one or two motorists have been towed out, having either failed to notice or ignored warning signs. Some farmers have been charging £25 to give a tow with tractors."
Re:If you can't ignore the GPS (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're in an unfamiliar city, buses (in contrast to trains) often have a frustratingly indescribable and unpredictable route/stop pattern, and when the driver/announcement system is of no help, a GPS system in your hand will help you figure out exactly how close you are to your destination, and when to get off the bus.
I no longer dread dealing with buses because of this capability, although the lurching stop/start of buses in general still drives me crazy. Try it sometime -- the small Nuvi-style units are just about as inconspicuous as an ipod, and are great for helping you get around.
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Er... ever tried asking the bus driver to tell you when you get to the stop that's nearest to such-and-such? It works surprisingly well...
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Just came back from Taiwan and used my GPS for precisely this, it was a late flight in and I really needed to get off at the right stop, I did not want to be wandering the streets at night.
In this case asking the bus driver was not an option, as he spoke no English.
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Er... ever tried asking the bus driver to tell you when you get to the stop that's nearest to such-and-such? It works surprisingly well...
Until you are in a foreign country, don't speak the language well, and are meet with a driver who has no patience for the American wasting his time.
I recently went with my wife to Germany. Our first steps around Berlin Tegel airport was to find where the Hauptbahnhof was located (translates to central train station, or something close to that). Unfortunately we didn't recall the word for hauptbahnhof at the time. We went to the advice counter in Tegel airport and asked them where we should go, they stumble
It's not about ignoring, it's about data transfer (Score:3, Interesting)
The thing is, I totally get what he is saying - I use a free nav app for the iPhone (and most other platforms) called Waze [waze.com]. At times, the screen is lit up like a christmas tree with a thousand data points.
But how I like to use the app, is simply as an informational display as to what is around me. So the app would be even more useful to me, if there was a mode that showed the next three streets upcoming and not much else. Kind of like he was talking about the tube map, a more logical and clearly presente
Headup display (Score:5, Interesting)
My car's frontwindow angle is say 45.
This allows me to just put my Android phone on my dashboard which reflects on the window and generates a transparent reflection which shows up in a "virtual distance" in my field of view.
It's not as crisp to actually read while driving or being stuck in traffic and it requires low light conditions, though. But you can make up a map easily.
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I'd prefer not to have to read the map upside down (bottom of the phone facing is closest to me) or backwards (phone is rotated around so the top is closest to me).
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i think what he is saying is that the screen-image would reverse (mirrored), so the backwards text isn't a problem.
I actually did this once with directions I printed off from the internet, and it worked OK despite the backwards text.
If I was going to do it again, I'd make the font really big and use the "mirror image" option when I printed it. I would also put about 5 different colored bars between the directions so I could more easily find the next exit/direction.
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It would simply draw the next few hundreds of meters of your route on your windshield over what you see through your windshield
I can just imagine the brilliant uses people would put this to: Look at me, no need for headights! *runs over pedestrians crossing the street at night* Wow, I can keep going 65 on the highway when it's zero visibility fog! *creates 200 car pileup*
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I don't know why HUDs haven't been more widely adapted, especially in the realm of motorcycles. Granted, my motorcycle doesn't have a windscreen, but for the highway cruisers and and what-not, I would think it invaluable to keep all the important information a rider needs available without having to take eyes off the road (a split second can kill). Now integrate with gps mapping, etc and we'd have a winner.
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motorcycle huds are very small as they can only display in a small window. what you really want, is a transparent display that can replace the visor part of the helmet.
What would be really useful though is a wireless transmission standard so that any helmet mounted HUD unit can receive data from any nearby motorcycle. Use range limitations like bluetooth only about 2 meters though. This way helmet people can design the hardware into the helmets.
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I must try that next time I'm pulled over "Hey, pig, speed is irrelevant. So back the hell off, man, and let me get off the beaten track."
For us bikers who don't have the pleasure of living in Buttfuck, Arizona, or wherever you're talking about, speed is relevant, and GPS is pretty damn handy for finding the nearest fuel - you know, once you hit reserve. There's more than one type of biker, although whatever motorised armchair riding leather-chap wearing "boys' club" you're in would doubtless disagree.
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HUDs work wonderfully in military aircraft. Operators should never look into a cockpit unless absolutely necessary.
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You'd think that would be done for regular instrements, especially the speedometer.
What's the big holdup, anyway? (Score:2)
What is the technological difficulty here? I would have thought that practical, quality heads up displays would have been about as ubiquitous as in-dash navigation is now in newer cars. With the development of pico projectors, I'd kind of assume by now it would be relatively trivial to have an in-dash display augmented or replaced entirely by an image projected onto the windshield.
Is it that complicated to make it work in the daytime or with decent quality? I would have thought they would have had a film
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IIRC the Corvette has had some form of HUD for several years now, although I think it's just speed and tach readouts. And I know some of their other cars had at least an option for a HUD speedometer.
...I lack the time to make it short. (Score:2)
What the article is talking about isn't "bloat", but rather extra algorithms to remove unnecessary detail. As Pascal put it, "I made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it short." It takes more work to include only and exactly the right information.
That's extremely hard with navigation, since leaving the wrong thing out can be worse than the original information overload.
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The cheapo two year old GPS I have does this already (garman Nuvi 200 series). If I am 1/2 a mile from the next turn it leaves off most smaller side streets. When I get within a certain distance of the turn it shows all of the details. You need this because when you are coming into a strange inter section you do ned to see that there are two streets that are very close together and you need a third street that is hidden behind a building.
If you can't multitask... (Score:2, Interesting)
Then again, my GPS display is very simple and I like it that way. I hate displays that are so complicated that you need to scan around the screen with your eyes for a few seconds to get your bearings. Those few seconds could make the difference between life and death.
I think the real problem here, which is not bein
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Then again, my GPS display is very simple and I like it that way.
Isn't that precisely the point of the article?
When this is the voice of your GPS (Score:2)
http://music-mix.ew.com/2009/12/01/snoop-dogg-gps/ [ew.com]
Who needs a screen anyway!
Case in point (Score:3, Funny)
Just last week, here, we had a truck driver following his GPS ignore no less than EIGHT road signs saying "no trucks allowed" ...
Then he got stuck on the train tracks (which was WHY the signs said "no trucks allowed") ... the predictable result followed, and about 24,000 lbs of pizza ingredients got scattered over a fairly good chunk of town.
There are some people in the world who just shouldn't abandon paper.
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> There are some people in the world who just shouldn't be allowed out of the
> care home!
But then the three of us who should would never have time to care for them all.
This is a great article, except... (Score:3, Funny)
Accurate visuals are extremely helpful (Score:2, Informative)
Personally, I use the accurate maps on a GPS device to resolve ambiguities in the directions. This is especially true in the case of unusual ramp systems on the highway.
Interesting but no (Score:2)
Anyone reading Doonesbury? (Score:3, Funny)
There's a storyline on Doonesbury in a studio where they are recording celebrity SatNav voice-overs. What we really need is James Earl-Jones on our SatNav. http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20091207 [doonesbury.com]
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Yeah, but "What is thy bidding, my master?" gets pretty old after only a couple of destinations are entered, and "Your lack of faith disturbs me" is a pretty obnoxious replacement for "recalculating."
Not quite yet (Score:2)
Maybe you have to hit a button to temporarily display a map, or park the car to keep the map up- the map could stay up
Subway maps not comparable to street maps (Score:2)
Setting aside his argument for a second. I don't think comparing GPS maps to subway maps is in any way helpful. Subway maps don't have to be exactly geographically accurate for at least reasons:
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Subway maps don't have to be exactly geographically accurate for at least reasons
By the time subway maps were required, mapmaking technology had improved to the point where an exact geographic representation was fairly trivial. The designer of the London tube map chose to simplify. He chose to throw things out. He chose to focus on what the riders required, and what they did not.
GPS Map designers need to figure out how to display the required information while filtering out what isn't required.
completely misunderstood (Score:3, Insightful)
When used correctly, this one amazing device outsources your mental burden of navigation, and presents it to you with a clear voice that lets you devote your effort to (hopefully) driving better, although obviously this has turned many people's attention elsewhere.
If you've ever found yourself in an unfamiliar city in fast moving, dense traffic, trying to find an address, you will be grateful that you can offload your navigational workload to the GPS, which tells you clearly and plainly when to get ready to turn, in how far a distance, potentially even making it safer as you no longer swerve across 3 lanes of traffic at the last minute while looking at a paper map.
Of course, people who use it to navigate down isolated country roads they're familiar with will never see the point, but for someone who's task-overloaded in a busy situation, listening to the GPS voice is an amazing improvement in life.
Useful Safety Feature (Score:3, Informative)
My TomTom unit actually has some safety options where you can have the unit not display the realtime map - instead, it just shows a graphical representation of the next instruction (for example, a line that corners right to signify a right turn), the distance to that instruction, and the street name. I think that's really a pretty useful feature. I have it set up so that it does that whenever I'm going more than 50mph.
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As compared to ... (Score:2)
Underground maps? Easy? Blimey... (Score:2)
>the simplicity of London's Underground map (not directionally accurate but visually easy to understand)
This is perfectly fine and true if all you wish to do is understand the map and only the map itself. (I'm all for cyclical adirectional forms).
While in London last week, visiting a semi-employed mathematical friend from Cambridge, I was confronted with the unusual task, probably never considered by the Underground Map's planners, of needing to travel from one point to another. (It is well-known c
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Getting around London with the Underground was rather easy for me and I've never dealt with subways before that trip nor had I been to London (or England) before.
Route to entrance station, route from exit station, the actual physical path in between didn't matter. And this was with the free brochure map and I didn't ask for directions.
It did get interesting when they started shutting stations down due to some bomb threats so I had to adjust some routes on the fly but that was an issue of certain lines shutt
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This might be fine if you know the entry and exit stations... actually, not, as you must also know the line.
In my case, I was in London for a 48-hour stop and am minimally familiar with Central London. Briefly explained, my expectation (you might call it hope) is to be able to receive an address over the handy, look it up, and immediately leave for the destination-- central or not.
If you have the U's trip planner online, you are of course fine. If you have a handy that can't get online (I called AT
Purchase A-Z map of London (Score:2)
Purchase a copy of the A-Z map of London (A5 book type not large fold out map). It's got real spatial maps and at the back or on the back cover has the tube map. Plus an index so you can see where tube stations are in the real world. Very handy for visiting friends etc when you're told "the nearest tube station is X" and you need to navigate the 200 metres from there. No maths degree required, average 11 year old literacy will suffice.
I think you mistake the purpose of the tube map - it was intended to show
We're wayyyy past that point. (Score:2)
About 15 years ago, I read an article about, how scientists found out, that the human brain dramatically changed over the past 40 years (from back then, so 55 years).
The change is, that we developed a new system, to cope with information overload.
Old people have (or would have, if they still lived) massive problems to cope with e.g. the typical blinking and animating downtown advertisement overkill of a Asian metropolis... or the typical ad-laden website.
We have learned to focus on one thing, and ignore all
Turn off the audio (Score:3, Interesting)
I found the audio to be distracting, whereas the video display gives me positional awareness, and I can look at it when I choose to, not when the box decides to say something. I found I was much more relaxed when I found how to turn off the audio.
So I guess having both at the same time is the real problem.
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Oh they're very helpful (Score:2)
...as I rode shotgun with the tow truck driver and listened to his GPS on the dash giving him the directions to my house. There was no way he could cheat me about the mileage to my house. Granted the language that the gadget's feminine voice spoke was one I didn't readily understand (for most people, Miami is South America j/k), and I doubt that man and woma--err, machine were conspiring to bill me excess $$ for that short trip, but I remembered to glare at the driver anyway, in case he even entertained the
The answer is yes. (Score:2)
I have GPS in my phone, and it is adequate for my purposes.
But having on on the dash running all the time is the height of gadget stupidity.
I drive the same route to work Monday thru Friday. The guy who also does in the 2009 Challenger has his GPS unit right in the driver's side corner of the windshield. Always on.
And the traffic delays and congestion are as predictable as the sun. Every day, unless it's a holiday week when they are only easier.
And the DVD players in the front dash are even worse.
Don't b
Re:technology editor sucks at technology? (Score:5, Informative)
Research consistently demonstrates that humans suck at multitasking. Worse, they suck at multitasking to a much greater degree than they think they do. If interpreting a poorly designed GPS UI while also driving counts as multitasking, it is probably a dangerous distraction. If the GPS UI is well designed, it could presumably function as just another subtle environmental cue, something that humans are very good at interpreting.
Re:technology editor sucks at technology? (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, isn't sucking at multitasking already multitasking, right there?
*ducks
*head explodes
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Wait, isn't sucking at multitasking already multitasking
That would be sucking while multitasking. Obviously you've never worked at a programming shop which employs fluffers.
Re:technology editor sucks at technology? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Also, this "study" fails to see that some people have passengers that can read/edit info on the GPS.
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Most consumer GPSs are accurate to within several feet, and even the cheaper models now announce street names in addition to the distance to turn. Five years ago those were valid concerns, but not really today.
In my experience, road construction and other detours tend to be the biggest issue. But then again, I treat my GPS more like a road sign than a HUD, so I'm not too concerned about it distracting me.
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or the number of times the driver gets into the wrong lane becuase they don't really understand what the words and numbers are actually telling them to do? T
Having used a satnav with a rental recently, I have to say... it's really hard to misunderstand "Turn left in 120 feet" "Turn left in 50 feet" "Turn left". I used the display, but really only in looking "ahead" to see what was coming up in a mile or two. If a driver doesn't understand how the localized unit of measurement is relevant to actual distance, they shouldn't be driving with or without satnav.
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how fancy does the picture have to be? (Score:3, Insightful)
But at complex junctions, actually seeing the layout and where I'm supposed to end up is invaluable. A picture really can be worth a thousand words.
Yes, but the columnist's point was that you don't need fancy graphics with photos to tell you that. All you need is a clear diagram.
The factory system in my Volvo is relatively primitive (dates back to 2001 or so), but has an excellent user interface. You get a simple rocker-pad and two buttons, on the BACK of the wheel, that control everything; your hand
Re:how fancy does the picture have to be? (Score:4, Interesting)
But at complex junctions, actually seeing the layout and where I'm supposed to end up is invaluable. A picture really can be worth a thousand words.
Yes, but the columnist's point was that you don't need fancy graphics with photos to tell you that. All you need is a clear diagram.
For those of us who can read maps, sure. But there's something of a sampling bias here on /. -- we tend to be folks who can process symbolic information pretty well. Maps are not a lot of use for my wife, whereas a picture of the intersection with something pointing to where she should leave would be just what she needs.
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Handling multitasking is one of the hardest things that instrument pilots need to do in aircraft. There are a lot of different instruments, and if you get fixated on one of them you tend to fall out of the sky. This is often even worse than a car hitting an abutment. The thing that takes the most practice is "keeping the scan going" -- looking regularly from instrument to instrument, and never stopping. There are even different systems of scan, with different virtues in terms of what information is recei
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Research consistently demonstrates that humans suck at multitasking. Worse, they suck at multitasking to a much greater degree than they think they do. If interpreting a poorly designed GPS UI while also driving counts as multitasking, it is probably a dangerous distraction. If the GPS UI is well designed, it could presumably function as just another subtle environmental cue, something that humans are very good at interpreting.
Speaking as someone who served as an experimental subject in testing GPS devices and GUIs over the road (Virginia Tech's traffic research folks carried this out), I whole heartedly endorse the 'distraction' observation. IN the experiment they kept turning up the amount of data presented and asking me to made decisions from it while driving. They repeatedly took it well past distracting, to outright dangerous. I finally made them shut it off altogether. People don;t suck at multitasking as long as they're in
Situational awareness (Score:4, Funny)
I have to post quickly, I have a Prius with a technology editor pinned inside I need to unwrap from around a bridge abutment.
Most people have pretty poor situational awareness. I've overheard more than once on he local ham radio repeater a conversation similar to this:
Ham driver: "Help help I have an emergency, I need a phone patch to CHP!"
Ham answers from somewhere: "Where are you?"
Driver: "I'm on the freeway!"
And so on. I can only imagine what 911 dispatchers go through.
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"I can only imagine what 911 dispatchers go through."
Hello 911? McDonalds won't give me my chicken McNuggets [huffingtonpost.com].
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If the guy is a technology editor, why is he struggling with something as simple as a GPS? I'd understand if he was reporting that others had this problem... but come on.
If you actually RTFA you'd see that he wasn't complaining that he couldn't work his GPS, but was concerned about the potentially distracting visual clutter that is appearing on newer GPSs: 3D buildings, landmarks, terrain etc. and comparing it with two minimalist systems which research has shown to be more effective at communicating the necessary information with minimum distraction.
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But when it comes to car navigation systems, I find myself having to pay way more attention, while the system should be lot more easier for somebody who is also required to pay all his/her attention to the road.
One of the reasons I do not use car navigation devices is that - I want a simple, minimal system.
Re:technology editor sucks at technology? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the guy is a technology editor, why is he struggling with something as simple as a GPS? I'd understand if he was reporting that others had this problem... but come on.
Ah, I believe the point being brought here is not a matter of being technologically challenged by such a device, but more of the matter of being a device that has gone from being a simple GPS to the new "all-in-wonder" device in the car that will talk to you, answer your phone, play music, give directions, and (soon), start throwing advertisements for local businesses in the area, all at the VERY HIGH cost of distracting the person who is in charge of controlling 2 metric tons of steel down a road at 60MPH or faster.
As the death tolls rise every day with cellular use while driving(including texting), I can definitely see the issue with similar devices. When insurance companies start refusing to pay for accidents caused by these devices, THEN we may start seeing some REAL reform with all of this. Until then, watch your ass on the roads, because these next-generation twit(ters) can't seem to get enough distractions behind the wheel. I'll be lucky if my kids live to see 30.
Re:technology editor sucks at technology? (Score:5, Funny)
2 metric tons of steel down a road at 60MPH or faster.
Please don't do that. We've lost mars probes because of things like that.
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You and BadAnalogyGuy would make a great WWF tag team.
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We don't know that. This piece, like all Economist articles, lacks a byline. For all we know, the writer could be a simple "Technology Correspondent", a mere peon at the magazine's vast technological desk.
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I can agree with that. I've been using GPS almost constantly ever since I started driving (I keep it on even when I drive in familiar places), but I always set it to 2D, top-down view. I also set it to always have north on top, and replace car icon with an arrow so that it's very easy to tell at a glance where I'm moving to. I find that, overall, that combination makes it really easy to keep the "big picture" of where I am relative to where I'm heading to. And if you've ever played GTA 1/2 a lot, you should
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That would be pretty neat. Is there any sat nav out there that has anthing even approaching this functionalit? Or a laptop application ?