The Garmin Nuvi 250: D’ho! missed another exit

In-car navigation devices are supposed to be one of those things that should improve our lives. The reason I bought one was because of all the in-car squabbles I had with my wife when we get lost looking for an address. I thought having a navigation assistant would help put an end to that, but it didn’t. Now our verbal fisticuffs are over what the navigation device is really trying to say.

But let’s be fair. The Garmin Nuvi 250 navigation device, which is essentially a GPS unit with built in road maps, really has helped a lot, but in other ways. I no longer have to spend time before a trip printing out long reams of turn-by-turn directions from Google Local (which hasn’t been all that accurate either); I also no longer put my life in peril by fumbling with maps in the car while processing driving directions or have to use a flashlight from my car to pin-point house numbers at night. I also like that I can discover new restaurants and other local points of interest without having to waste a single drop of petro.

Yet despite all the marvelous benefits, there are still some simple functional aspects of the device that need improvement. The one frustrating aspect that stands out is how the voice guidance system gives directions on exiting highways. This is probably the most confusing aspect of the device, and I don’t think it’s just the Garmin Nuvi 250 GPS that’s affected. My uncle in New York uses a Magellan device that is just as confusing (my aunt regularly gives him grief as well over his over reliance on the device for navigating around the Big Apple).

There will always be some that will say that the directions it gives in entirely comprehensible, but I’m here to say that to the majority of average Joes and Janes, exiting directions are the most confusing and troublesome aspect of this otherwise useful device (conceptually anyway).

I use the highways in metro Vancouver a lot to get places and I still get confused when the device starts chirping. The device also provides textual directions on screen, but many driver (especially myself) have become accustomed to going by the pleasant audio directions spoken by, which in my case, a digital feminine guide.

Instead of saying “exit right” as one approaches a highway exit, the device says, “keep right”. Now it may not seem all that confusing as you read this, but take it in context. While on the highway, the device will usually advise you to keep to the right lane as you approach your exit. It’ll also advise you to keep to the right on roads if you’re suppose to make a turn at the next intersection. Why this is confusing is that it uses that same expression for keeping on the right lane as it does for advising you to make a highway exit. So quite often, I’ll miss the right exit because what I think it’s trying to tell me is to stay on the right lane, but not exit.

It’s even more confusing when a highway exit branches and there are two exit lanes that take you to completely different places. In such a case, the Garmin Nuvi instructs you to “keep left” or “keep right”. Now if this isn’t confusing for a driver unfamiliar with the territory, I don’t know what is. To me, “keep left” feels like I should miss the exit and stay on the highway’s left lane. “Keep right” feels like I should stay on the highway’s right lane. To me, for some reason, it doesn’t seem intuitive that “keep right” means exiting a highway.

Why can’t the device include useful verbal directions for “exiting” a highway? This is a classic case of failing to understand a user’s semantic model and also failure to provide adequate feedback. When most people give directions for exiting a highway, they’ll say “exit at the next ramp” or or “take the next exit” or something similar. People generally understand what “exit” means on a highway. On the other hand, “keep right” can be easily misconstrued for staying on the right lane.

What this device needs is an improvement to it’s audio guidance system for highway exiting. It should go without being said that driving is one of the most dangerous things people do on a daily basis, and adding to the confusion of driving using a bad semantic model for directions can be outright deadly – especially on highways!

What shoud Garmin (and other navigation system providers) do? Perform a field study to better understand people’s semantic models and how they communicate directions to each other. Try to better understand the terms people use to communicate complicated directions, such as in situations where a single highway exit has several branching ramps. This might be done through a non-participant observational study where microphones are planted to record direction-giving from passenger to driver. Learnings from the audio data could inform ways of communicating directions to drivers that most closely matches their understanding of what to do.

Such improvements would not only save drivers from getting even more lost and wasting valuable time and fuel, it should definitely save me from my wife’s constant nagging and criticisms every time I demonstrate my woeful reliance on my Garmin Nuvi GPS on the highway.