In-car gps navigation: engagement with and disengagement from the environment

ABSTRACT

Although in-car GPS navigation technology is proliferating, it is not well understood how its use alters the ways people interpret their environment and navigate through it. We argue that GPS-based car navigation might disengage people from their surrounding environment, but also has the potential to open up novel ways to engage with it. We present an ethnographically-informed study with GPS users, showing evidence for practices of disengagement as well as new opportunities for engagement, illustrating our findings using rich descriptions from the field. Grounded in our observations we propose design principles for GPS systems that support richer experiences of driving. We argue that for a fuller understanding of issues of disengagement and engagement with the environment we need to move beyond a focus on the (re)design of GPS devices, and point to future directions of work that embrace a broader perspective.

REFERENCES

• 1: Philip E. Agre, Computation and Human Experience, Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 1997
• 2: Aporta, C., & Higgs, E. (2005). Satellite culture -- global positioning systems, Inuit wayfinding, and the need for a new account of technology. Current Anthropology, 46(5).
• 3: Blanco, M., Biever, W.J., Gallagher, J.P., & Dingus T.A. (2006). The impact of secondary task cognitive processing demand on driving performance. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 38(5).
• 4: Borgmann, A. (1984). Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life: A Philosophical Inquiry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• 5: Brown, B.A.T., & Laurier, E. (2003). Maps & journeying: an ethnomethodological approach. Cartographica, 4(3).
• 6: Barry Brown , Mark Perry, Of maps and guidebooks: designing geographical technologies, Proceedings of the 4th conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices, methods, and techniques, June 25-28, 2002, London, England [doi>10.1145/778712.778747]
• 7: Bull, M. (2000). Sounding out the city: Personal stereos and the management of everyday life. Oxford: Berg.
• 8: Burnett. G.E., & Lee, K. (2005). The effect of vehicle navigation systems on the formation of cognitive maps. In Traffic and Transport Psychology: Theory and Application, Edited by G. Underwood.
• 9: Burnett, G.E., Summerskill, S.J., & Porter, J.M. (2004). On-the-move destination entry for vehicle navigation systems: Unsafe by any means? Behaviour and Information Technology, 23(4).
• 10: Chrisman, N. (2005). Full circle: more than just social implications of GIS. Cartographica 40(4).
• 11: Paul Dourish, Re-space-ing place: "place" and "space" ten years on, Proceedings of the 2006 20th anniversary conference on Computer supported cooperative work, November 04-08, 2006, Banff, Alberta, Canada [doi>10.1145/1180875.1180921]
• 12: Forbes, N. (2006). Online survey of in-vehicle navigation system users. University of Nottingham. http://www.mrl.nott.ac.uk/~nlf/
• 13: William W. Gaver , Jacob Beaver , Steve Benford, Ambiguity as a resource for design, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, April 05-10, 2003, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA [doi>10.1145/642611.642653]
• 14: Steve Harrison , Paul Dourish, Re-place-ing space: the roles of place and space in collaborative systems, Proceedings of the 1996 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work, p.67-76, November 16-20, 1996, Boston, Massachusetts, United States [doi>10.1145/240080.240193]
• 15: Jain, S. (2002). Urban errands: The means of mobility. Journal of Consumer Culture, 2(3).
• 16: Lobben, A.K. (2004). Tasks, strategies, and cognitive processes associated with navigational map reading: a review perspective. The Professional Geographer, 56(2).
• 17: Lorimer, H., & Lund, K. (2003) Performing facts: finding a way over Scotland's mountains. The Soc. Review 51(s2).
• 18: May, A.J., & Ross, T. (2006). Presence and quality of navigational landmarks: Effect on driver performance and implications for design. Human Factors, 48(2).
• 19: Noel, E., Nonnecke, B., & Trick, L. (2005). Evaluating first-time and infrequent use of in-car navigation devices. Proceedings of the 3rd International Driving Symposium on Human Factors in Driver Assessment, Training and Vehicle Design, Rockport, ME.
• 20: Kenton O'Hara , April Slayden Mitchell , Alex Vorbau, Consuming video on mobile devices, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, April 28-May 03, 2007, San Jose, California, USA [doi>10.1145/1240624.1240754]
• 21: Nelly Oudshoorn , Trevor Pinch, How Users Matter: The Co-Construction of Users and Technology (Inside Technology), The MIT Press, 2003
• 22: Kayur Patel , Mike Y. Chen , Ian Smith , James A. Landay, Personalizing routes, Proceedings of the 19th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, October 15-18, 2006, Montreux, Switzerland [doi>10.1145/1166253.1166282]
• 23: Seth Rogers , Claude-Nicolas Fiechter , Pat Langley, An adaptive interactive agent for route advice, Proceedings of the third annual conference on Autonomous Agents, p.198-205, April 1999, Seattle, Washington, United States [doi>10.1145/301136.301193]
• 24: Phoebe Sengers , Bill Gaver, Staying open to interpretation: engaging multiple meanings in design and evaluation, Proceedings of the 6th conference on Designing Interactive systems, June 26-28, 2006, University Park, PA, USA [doi>10.1145/1142405.1142422]
• 25: Srinivasan, R. & Jovanis, P.P. (1997). Effect of in-vehicle route guidance systems on driver workload and choice of vehicle speed: findings from a driving simulator experiment. Lawrence Erlbaum: Mahwah, NJ.
• 26: Svahn, F. (2004). In-car navigation usage: An end-user survey on existing systems. Proc. IRIS'27.
• 27: Sakari Tamminen , Antti Oulasvirta , Kalle Toiskallio , Anu Kankainen, Understanding mobile contexts, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, v.8 n.2, p.135-143, May 2004 [doi>10.1007/s00779-004-0263-1]
• 28: Thrift, N. (2004) Driving in the City. Theory Culture Society, 21(4/5).
• 29: Tuan, Y. (1977). Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• 30: Urry, J. (2004). The system of automobility. Theory Culture Society, 21 (4/5).
• 31: John Williamson , Steven Strachan , Roderick Murray-Smith, It's a long way to Monte Carlo: probabilistic display in GPS navigation, Proceedings of the 8th conference on Human-computer interaction with mobile devices and services, September 12-15, 2006, Helsinki, Finland [doi>10.1145/1152215.1152234]
• 32: Wyatt, S. (2003). Non-users also matter: the construction of users and non-users of the internet. In How Users Matter. N. Oudshoorn and T. Pinch, eds. MIT: MIT Press, 67--79.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.m Miscellaneous

Additional Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.4 COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY
      K.4.2 Social Issues

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors

Keywords:
environmental engagement, gps, qualitative field study