Jan Chipchase works on User Research for Nokia and also writes a pithy blog - Future Perfect - posts normally just consist of a photo and a line or two that make you think.
Yesterday, he wrote a typical post about Wayfinding, which is finding out from a location feed on your mobile where you are and getting a map showing where you want to go.
As he says: “It’s easier to just ask someone”.
Asking someone the way has been termed as Social Navigation and is yet another barrier to the implementation of mobile local search, I posted about yesterday. For all the high tech available, it is indeed simply easier to ask a colleague, friend or stranger how to get somewhere or where the nearest x is.
Actually, it’s easier to phone someone on your mobile for this info, thatn use the phone itself to get it.
This will change as phones get better, but right now Social Navigation is the best form of local search there is, in terms of accuracy, speed and usability. This needs to be taken account of when we’re thinking what successful mobile search will look like.
Actually, ’social navigation’ is wider than that: it’s relying on direct or indirect sharing of information for guiding movements.
A relevant resource about it: Dourish, P. & Chalmers, M. (1994). Running out of space: models of information navigation. Proceedings of HCI’94, Glasgow, August 1994.
Hi Nicolas
Thanks for the info.
Actually, I just read *your* blog and you picked up practically the same point from the same post from Jan!
Well, not quite the point about mobile search, which was my main angle. But Social Interaction. Great minds etc - keep up the great work!
Russell
Yep, serendipituous meetings…
I had this concept in mind when we added a “Send to phone” feature to Yahoo Local search on the web.
When someone is lost they call a friend who can look up an exact address on a yellow pages site then SMS the address/directions down to their friend’s phone.
I’m not sure if anyone uses the product this way, but I think it’s a good example of technology augmenting a social interaction.
If your carrier has LBS support and you have an j2me app that can request your location information from the carrier, then you just launch an app that shows on the map where you are at the moment.
What can be easier than that?
Serge - spoken like a true techie
Actually, I’m sure you will be right at some point - once “phones get better” as I wrote.
However, we’re not there yet - I haven’t seen any carrier who offers this kind of LBS app and feed combo. At the very least, you have to wait for the app to launch,for it to connect and give you the info - and that assumes you have line of site with the satellite etc.
Feel free to point me in the right direction of such a live and reliable service now.
Even if it was available, for 99.9% of the population, it’s just easier to ask. OK, I also accept that maybe this should be 49.9% - many men refuse to ask directions from fellow humans. Must be something in the DNA!
Russell
Erm…line of sight with a satellite?
AFAIK, there are several methods to figure user’s location. One I’m talking about is carrier based LBS (no A-GPS phone needed).
It can be done several ways:
1. You have an item in your SIM menu “Where am I?”. Upon clicking an sms is then to the carrier with a request to fetch location information. A carrier or LBS provider than makes request about user’s current location and sends back an MMS message with a map shot.
2. A user has a j2me map app installed on his phone. Whenever he wants to find his whereabouts he launches the interactive map app.
Here’s an example of service that was launched by one of India’s banks: http://www.atmmarketplace.com/news_story_15552.htm
Serge - either method is still going to be slower and more difficult to use for the average punter, and that’s my point.
As far as HOW it works, I assumed we were talking A-GPS as I understand that it’s the most accurate. I’m not a techie though and maybe I’ve believed too many press releases
But if we’re talking other tracking methods, I’d be interested in finding out what they are.
Cell ID is just not good enough to be useable in this context - certainly with the demos I’ve seen, the Cell is too big to be useful on a map scaled to a mobile screen. In rural areas, cells can be huge. And in urban areas, they can’t produce enough detail.
Triangulation also has accuracy issues and time delay problems.
Is there better way that I’m not familiar with?
But this is really not what I’m trying to say. The average person will find it much easier for the forseeable future just to ask another person. That might not be true for you or I, but the average person doesn’t use technology like this when there a better/easier to use solution.
Russell
I say, if you want to find your bank’s ATM, given options:
- will you ask strangers?
- will you look around for ATM signs?
- or will you launch a mobile map to fetch your local map?
I think it’s pretty much depends on _what_ you’re looking for. For some places like pubs, it’s certainly easier to ask people, with other localities it just might be easier to see it on a map.
It is such a relative question, this pondering of social navigation. Do I want to bother a friend? Can I get ahold of a friend? Am I in a town where I have a friend that is familiar with the area? Is there a local person that is nearby that I can ask about directions?
I recently changed locations and I absolutely rely on my friends in the new location to point me in the right direction. But there are plenty of circumstances that dictate the need for an alternative means for getting information. Those could be through some phone-based or mobile search-based procedure, much like we provide here at 4INFO.net.
Does the screw gun compete with the screw driver? Not really. They are both necessary tools in the belt that help you get the job done.
And, in my book, so are social navigation and mobile search.