Set navigation point. How to handle it?

[Victor Shcherb]

Hi All,

I think we did a small usability mistake (or a big one) in the past. So we don't have clear button "Navigate To" instead we have "Set point" and suggestion to navigate.

The problems are 

- Just to set point, no we need to cancel 3 buttons dialog (which is not very obvious)

- When the navigation finished we clear automatically point, what is handy for automobile navigation but not at all, if you set specific point and you want to go there directly

But! Having for example 2 destination point is even more tricky (one for navigation and one for you local set).

So the challenge here how could we combine typical navigation system use case with typical maps use case.  Probably default profile could help us?

One of the obvious solution is running 2 different programs as Google Maps/Navigation , but this is not very handy to switch context and to have some features there/here...

Victor

[Éric Piel]

Op dinsdag 16 april 2013 20:50:30 UTC+2 schreef V S het volgende:

Hi Victor,

I do agree that currently the fact that the "direction" dialog automatically appears after setting the destination point is confusing if you don't want navigation. It indeed took me a while to realise that pressing "back" would create the destination without starting the navigation.

I haven't noticed the second behaviour you describe concerning the destination point automatically deleting itself. Maybe that's because I always stop manually the navigation before reaching exactly the destination. You also mention a problem with having two destination points, but I don't understand what you mean. I feel that having intermediary routing points and favourites should cover pretty much any use case.

In anyway, I agree with you that we'd better not have two different programs just to handle the small differences!

To try to find a good interface I'd suggest that you first lay down an example use case for each different types of scenarios that you want to support. Then, for each alternative interface, you can describe click per click what would the user do for each use case. Then you can compare the different solutions more clearly.

What I've noticed is that when the user has just picked a destination point, in the "direction" dialog it doesn't seem to make sense to route according to a GPX (because the GPX will overwrite the destination point anyway). So a simple solution would be to have a different version of the "direction" dialog when it's automatically displayed after the destination point which has a button "I don't want any direction, I can do it myself, just leave this point as is" (or a shorter form of this text ;-) ) instead of "GPX route".

Concerning the problem of the destination point deleted at the end of the navigation, why not just always leaving it there? Is there a problem to have the destination point still available there after the user has arrived (or more exactly, after OsmAnd thinks that the user has arrived)?

Best,
Éric

[Victor Shcherb]

Forgot to mention what is the problem with leaving destination point : 

- If you leave destination point, next time on "Navigate To" action will one more dialog pops up (do you want to set intermediate point?)

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[Hardy]

My opinion: It took us many iterations to get where we are:

- a dialogue about navigation automatically popping up once you chose a destination

- a dialogue about overwriting the existing destination or selecting interim waypoints was necessary once we introduced waypoints

 

While automatic pop-up dislogues require extra clicks,. at least they  provide automatic user guidance.I really got used to it.... is there really an issue? Remember back when we had 5 users per week asking us how to start the navigation (One of OsmAnds main features, after all)? At least we resolved that ... :-)

[Victor Shcherb]

To Hardy, 

It is resolved but not in the desirable way. If you use OsmAnd in 90% as auto-navigation. Why do you need dialog "Show"/"Follow" - you need only Follow in the car. 

I'm not saying that is misleading now, but still not very handy. We need to make as less action required as possible. 

One of the way, make the decision for the user and let him cancel that action. Like start calculating route and ask if he wants it or ask about default action.

Victor

[Sebastian Spaeth]

Hi VS, Hardy,

I agree the "usual" action is follow. The only time, this is NOT the case (and in this case the popup dialog confuses me always), is the "Show route from here" option. After choosing that, I get the dialog whether I want to "show/follow/gpx" which is nonsensical for that option (you CAN only *show* in this case, try to chose "follow" and your "route from here" is gone.).

So the autopopup-dialog could really be done away with, if the "route by GPX" feature were somehow reachable in another way. The pedestrian/car/bike mode is 100% the mode that my map view is set to, and I always "follow" unless I do a "show route from here" which by definition "shows" the route.

Just a user's input.
Sebastian

[Hardy]

Yes, I agree, it would be handy to get rid of the entire dialogue. But in order to do that, we have to go through the complete checklist of what that dialogue provides, move it elsewhere (or get rid of obsolete options), and then deal with how/when the user then finds these settings:

- Transport mode

- Temporary "Long distance" option (btw. I sucessfuly calulate 600km routes now without that!)

- Offer GPX routing

 

As noted above: Follow should be the default if routing from current position, and "Only show" if routing from another selected position (and maybe from the current map center while there is no location fix yet?)

[Nico W]

On  April 24 I posted "new version issues", with a suggestion regarding setting of navigation points. Please look at that and tell me if this would be possible.

 

The 3 Direction items Follow / Only show / GPX Route are usable in their own ways. "Follow" just shows what you have covered and is handy if you are going somewhere (unfamiliar area) and keep the option to go the same way back (I use it most while hiking), "Only Show" shows the route to go and "GPX route" shows a previously recorded GPX.

I have used all three and each has it's own value. I think they need to stay just as they are.