GPS Navigation System as Tour Guide
by Mark Denton on November 6th, 2008
A couple of weeks ago, in a post about a pilot wayfinding program for visually impaired people, I mentioned that the program being tested by Royal College of Art research associate David Sweeney might actually create an experience that was more rewarding than that of fully sighted individuals. This was based on the fact that the hand-held system did more than just get the user from origin to destination. It also called attention to points of interest along the way.
Now, thanks to Jeff Parks at I.A. Consultants, I have learned about a presentation that Frog Design’s Jennifer Kilian made earlier this year at the O’Reilly Where 2.0 conference. Part of the presentation is a case study of the Merian Scout Navigator, which is a GPS-enabled device that employs some of the same concepts as Sweeney’s system, although in service to a very different audience.
The device, developed by Frog for German travel publisher Merian, provides the turn-by-turn driving directions you expect from a GPS navigation system, but it also leverages Merian’s travel content to serve as a sort of virtual tour guide, describing important sights and also presenting opportunities for users to alter their route in order to visit destinations they might have otherwise missed