Driving is based on effective navigation. When using a navigation device, the user interface, the amount and quality of the underlying data and its representation all effect the quality of navigation. This study evaluates whether drivers in three different countries consider these devices to be useful and what functionality they would prefer. An online questionnaire was used to assess built-in navigation systems. The findings from 213 respondents show that current car GPSs are overloaded with features. Regardless of country, drivers simply require more basic functionality in the interface. It was also noted that the embedded functions in these devices are not fully utilized. In addition, many people use the navigation service to enter a new address while the car is moving. It may be worth examining how this option can be better implemented.
1. Introduction
A major requirement for safe travel is fast and accurate navigation assistance. While maps once served this function, at least with the help of a navigator/passenger, technology now provides electronic and mostly automated solutions. Several different types of navigation tools are available, including free phone apps, such as Google Maps, dedicated GPS navigation devices or built-in car navigation systems. These devices all have different user interfaces and graphic displays requiring varying amounts of user attention
[1].
Th2. Brief History In-Car Navigation Devices
Specialized devi
ces
research specifically examines built-in GPS systems in cars. These types of navigation systems have been the subject of only a minimal amount of academic researchfor navigation assistance have been available for over a century. An advertisement dated 30 December 1909 describes a scrolling map associated with a steering wheel. By 1930, the Italian “Touring Club Italiano” worked on a simple principle: before starting, the driver selected and threaded the appropriate map sheets, and then the device rolled these sheets from one roll to another. The pr
imary purpose of this research was to determine what should be implemented ioblem was that when the vehicle deviated from the route or came to a fork, the driver had to change the map sheet and find the current position
a[2][3].
In new1966, generation of car navigation devices. We wanted to obtain answers to the following general questions:
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What do GPS systems look like today and how are they used?
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Do drivers consider these devices to be appropriate? If not, what would they prefer?
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Are there any differences in the preferences between countries with different economic backgrounds?
General Motors introduced DAIR (Driver Aid, Information and Routing), which alerted the driver to road signs, speed limits and hazards along the route [4]. The
firs
urvey was conducted in three Central European countries: Hungary, Romania and Austriat true automotive navigation system, the Electro Gyro-Cator, appeared in 1981 from Honda, Alpine and Stanley Electric [3][5].
2. Our questionnaire
In viewBy of the guidelines for questionnaire design, we designed the survey to1985, the Etak Navigator, which used ‘dead reckoning’ to determine the vehicle’s position reach[2][6], was
many people as possible in the threthe world’s first publicly available, in-car navigation system.
GPS-base
d different countries. The same questions were asked in order to make the results comparable between countriesnavigation based on the US satellite configuration was introduced in 1990 in the Mazda Eunos Cosmo as part of the touch-screen car control system [7]. T
wo years later, the
questions were translatworld’s first GPS with voice navigation was introduced in
such a way to capture the identical meaning of each questionthe Toyota Celsior (Lexus LS—luxury sedan). In Europe, the BMW E38 incorporated GPS navigation in 1994 [8]).
GooglIn the
Forms was used because most people have familiarity with this online platform. Three separate “tiles” were created for the questionnaire. General US, it was introduced a year later by Oldsmobile, and called GuideStar. Selective availability was removed by the US government in 2000, making GPS signals more accurate, and GPS-based navigation of all forms became more prevalent. More and more car companies, businesses and tech giants have since entered the automotive GPS market.
3. Evaluation of In-Car Navigation
A quvarie
stions were asked on the first sheet. Wty of studies have examined the effectiveness of in-car navigation. In 2009, TomTom users were asked about the
presence or use of a built-in GPSuse of their navigation device [9]. iIn
the last two questions. Those who answered “NO” to 2011, a Hungarian-founded company, NNG—which developed the iGO Navigation Engine—used a questio
n about the usennaire to evaluate its system [10]. A Ro
fmanian study an in-carexamined traffic in reference to navigation system
s w[11].
With the
incre
simply asked why they do not use it. The “YES” usage path consisted of 50 questions divided into three parts (see https://mercator.elte.hu/~vorosfanni/navigation.html).ased use of smartphones, free navigation applications have become popular. Hu et al., (2015) examined if drivers are willing to sacrifice some of the affordances of modern navigation systems in order to Aprol
together, 1557 replies were received from the three countriesong the phone’s battery life. The study also acquired data about the prevalence of phone-based GPSs and voice/visual preference [12].
ITo get
was found that a large percentage of respinformation on prototypes of Google Maps Navigation during real-world usage, an Android-based feedback mechanism was developed [13]. Acco
rdin
dents did not use ag to the 41 participants, most used the built-in
car navigation system
as a supplemental application [14].
4. Spatial Knowledge Acquisition
3. Results
3.1. Current interfaces
ThDifference
s last two optional questions of the questionnaire coin the spatial acquisition of knowledge between verbal instructions and mobile maps during driving were investigated in 2005 [15]. Mün
czer
ned what drivers see now on the built-in GPS “map” et al. compared three electronic navigation systems with paper maps [1]. It view
and what they want to see. Similar answers were given to both questions. The responses were organas found that although navigation system users have poor survey knowledge, they have good route knowledge. It was also shown that the size of the map display has an effect on spatial knowledge acquisition [16]. ‘Wiz
eard
into four groups: “I have it and I want it”,of Oz’ prototyping—a design methodology “I have it, but I don’t want it”, “I don’t have it but I want it” anused
“I don’t have it and I don’t want it”.to Fimpro
r each country, two user interfaces were created from thesve user experience (UX)—was used in the research, e.g., no GPS was used. To compare spatial knowledge acquisition, Ishikawa et al. [17] include
d groups.
3.2. Recommended interfaces
We used all four groups to create the proposed ideal interface, but we merged the values into two groups: I want it = “I have it and I want it” + “I don’t have it, but I want it” and I don’t want it = “I have it, but I don’t want it” + “I don’t have it and I don’t want it”.
4. Discussion
We summarized the 213 answers of the three countries for all the 24 questions (4023 answers). The results are presented in Figure 11. Hungarian is used in the illustration. “Utca” means street and “Majd” means then. For other terms or help labels, the English meaning is shown in gray.
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The device speaks the user’s native language most of the time but cannot handle voice commands—even if it implements voice recognition, it is more common that drivers do not take advantage of this feature.
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Most people use a perspective view (with the facing direction to the north).
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Although it was not specifically asked what input method was preferred (just what they currently have), we can conclude that: (A) many people are bothered by the navigation knob (it makes it difficult to enter text); and (B) voice navigation is not widely used. Based on these questions, the touchscreen has been designated as the required input.
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Since only a small percentage of users (~30) indicated that they are specifically bothered by the click sound when they select something on the interface, we concluded that users will also want this sound to some extent.
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Most would prefer the current placement of the navigation interface. The top of the center console also received a similar percentage, so we marked it with a dashed line.
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Users prefer the night mode and they usually check the alternative routes during planning (gray line in the illustration).
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Although it is not connected to the map view of the interface, most drivers use history for frequently visited addresses (mostly addresses of family or friends).
5. Conclusions
Inmap-based GPS gen
eral, it seems that car and navigation companies have likely navigation systems in their research (in addition to paper maps and direct travel experience).
5. Location-Based Services
Lo
t ca
rried out the necessary research to make built-in navigtion-based services (LBS) are mobile applications that give information d
evices really useful to a broadepending on the location and context of the user
base[18][19]. Th
ise research can serve as a starting point. The specific findings are as follows:
- (1)
-
Glargest and probably the most popular LBS applications (including driver assistance, passen
ger
ally speaking, the built-in GPSs currently on t information and vehicle management) are the mobile (car or pedestrian) navigation systems [20]. The
se market are overloaded with featuressystems are created and designed to help people during wayfinding activities in different environments [21].
Location-based Oinformation can
the one hand,be conveyed to users th
emselves (regardless of country) seem to require less functionality in therough an overview map or as turn-by-turn instructions. According to Gartner [22], li
nmite
rface, and on the other hand, the existing fund-sized screens provide a limited overview. This can be compensated with good wayfinding instructions
[23]. Fa
br
e not fullikant and Goldsberry
ut[24] hi
ghli
zed either.-
- (2)
-
Frghted that bottom
-up a
cartographic point of view,nd top-down mechanisms drive human visual attention. Unexperienced users
desire theprocess animated display
of fewer and fewer objectss based on perceptual salience and n
eed them representeot thematic relevance [25]. Accord
in
thg to Ware
[26], us
imple
st possible form. Furtrs can detect a maximum of four moving objects simultaneously.
The
‘Geogr
simplificaphic Information
may be a necessary as a car navigation system is primarily intended to facilitate drivingDisplays’ (GID) offered by smartphones can be examined from (a) GIScience, (b) cartographic and (c) a cognitive science perspective [27].
- (3a)
-
The main
downside challenge—from the GIScience perspective—is the
price of these built-in devi‘context’ (information for a person, place or object characterization)—that is, adaptation, inference, management and modeling [28]. Acc
ording to Griffin e
st al.
Many[29], people
’s also do not pay to update the data. Thus, these built-in devices will become less useful over timebehavior will change if they receive more information about the environment (e.g., spatial and task contexts often alter during navigation). Technical systems should solve this problem.
-
- (4b)
-
OIn
ly a few users take advantage of t order to help the user’s understanding, graphic elements on the display should change according to many visual variables [30][31]. The more sophisticated
the features in these devices. Those who do so do itvisualizations are, the better the performance of a navigation-related task. To this end, new functions have been developed, e.g., multi-scale traversal routes in a simultaneous representation, reducing the need to zoom in and out for orientation c[32]. The extent of a visualization
task’s perf
identlyormance depends on expertise [33][34][35] and
re
gularlymotional context [36].
-
- (5c)
-
GID
ue to the different economic backgrounds in the counts should support the user’s mental representation of the variety of spatial conditions that can be used during navigation [27]. For
navi
es surveyed, there are difgation, spatial information must be translated from one reference
frame to another [37]. GIDs
can faci
n the desired interfacelitate this transition by providing a track-up map that improves navigation efficiency [38].
With However, when looking at usagethe help of the GID’s instructions, the decision-making process of the user decreases [39][40], or rath
er distra
bits, these differences become muccts the visual attention from the environment—the space is less experienced directly by the users [41][42].-
6. User Experience
Th
e more negligible.-
- (6)
-
Nterm “user experience” (UX) has a
v wi
gation software companiesde range of meanings [43]. shAcco
uld notrding to Alben [44], ‘experi
ence
that a lot of people use the GPS while driving, especially to enter a new address. It may be worth re-thinking this feature to minimiz’ refers to the way interactive products are used: the sense of ownership, the feeling of use, how well the tools serve their purpose, whether they are understood to work and how well the tool fits into the environment in which it is used.
The
UX is (1) the
potential for accidentsconsequence of the user’s internal state (expectations, needs, motivations, moods, etc.
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An), (2) the char
ea of future research associated with navigation deacteristics of the intended system (including all products, services
of all types would be whether map-reading skills are declining as users become more dependent on their devicesand infrastructure that are involved in the interaction when the product under consideration is used) and (3) the context (or environment) within which the interaction takes place.
UX Itis may also be the case that the quality or functionality of mental maps is declining. Whilesubjective: the user’s state influences the perception of the system, which in turn influences the experience and the user’s state. Built-in navigation
devices help us move through the spatialsystems have the potential to influence the relationship between users and their environment
, they may not help in deep and complex ways. Empirical and theoretical analyses show that the use
r conceive of GPS units changes people’s understanding of the
space they are traversing. If that is the case, humans will become increasingly dependent on themworld around them, their learning habits, their navigation techniques and their knowledge of spaces and places. GPS navigation is based on abstract representations of these spaces and places [45].