Plural Navigation

Navigation for a Wholesome Experience

To redesign the current principles of navigation such that it is sensitive to the user’s intent and understands the subjectivity in the experience while navigating through a route to reach their desired destination.

Plural Navigation

Navigation for a Wholesome Experience​

“To redesign the current principles of navigation such that it is sensitive to the user’s intent and understands the subjectivity in the experience while navigating through a route to reach their desired destination.”

Overview

Interactive Map

2nd Semester

Part 2 icon

Research Paper

5th Semester

Routes the App

7th Semester

Define

Icon: Navigation
What is Navigation?
The culmination of, ‘survey knowledge’ -to orient ourselves to the destination and “route knowledge”, familiarising with the route and travelling though the familier path.
Physical and Digital Triggers
With the top view navigation we eliminate the cues from what we see in front of us- landmarks, local interaction, landscape, people, food, spots.
Icon: Social Interaction
Social interaction, engagement and isolation
To be able to show collective focus on any societal cause or concern, we need to be able to develop a sense of belonging, collective acknowledgement and engage with our surrounding. But today, our practices isolate us from other people and our surroundings, eliminating the interactions which brings collectiveness.
Icon: Quantitative and Qualitative
Quantitative and Qualitative Data

To navigate today we use -distance, time and density.
What about the qualitative aspects such as -the purpose of travel, intention, what are the characteristics of the destination and the journey, what do I know about the route?

1/3

Physical Map

In this era where Google maps is prevalent, all day to day issues regarding navigation; traffic; directions; a definite route, are taken care. But is that enough?

A folded compact map with the starting point i.e. any local point you are at, and flaps describing all its alternative routes (fast, long, full of tress, scenic beauty)

  • Why are we being told to take the same route every single day?

  • Is going to a park and a hospital, which might be nearby, a similar routine?

  • What else do we know about these routes apart from the kms, traffic and time?

No matter the database gathering, it may never own the efficient local information that the local communities have, coming from experience and simply existing there. How might we increase community interaction while ensuring safety, reliability and accessibility that digital maps already offer while navigating within a town or a city? 

A physical version of google maps that explores community interaction.

This map gives alternative routes, describes the routes, and overcomes many of the shortcomings of google maps. It gives point to point experience with which, all of these points get more emphasis and local people’s opinions in turn become legitimate. All roads are numbered, making it easy to memorize the route suggested. All the points are described, with tags, for example-Aasha TeaVala, since 1980, which helps in triggering conversations along with seeking information about the route.

“It is not about the destination; it is about the journey”

Work presented at the Srishti Collective exhibition 2017 as undergraduate 1st year representation.

Srishti Collective Presentation
2/3

Research

Publication

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3369457.3369545

Presented my paper Plural Navigation: Navigation for a Wholesome Experience at the 31st Australian Conference on Human-Computer Interaction ( OzCHI 2019 ) at Fremantle, WA, Australia. The paper is published used ACM

3/3

Routes,
the Plural Navigation App,

for a Socially Driven Interactive Experience

Journey Infograph
My father is taking my brother and I to the beach. Should he still go by shortest distance and least time?

Case Study:

Cubbon Park

Bangalore City is expanding, and more and more people are settling at the peripherals of the city. With people spending long travel hours, it’s time to divert focus from the destination and towards the journey travellers are taking everyday.

Map of Cubbon Park

Site Mapping and Primary Research

Mapping all possible routes from the points of interests to the Cubbon Park metro station. Shadowing travellers to their destination.

Physically mapping the hotspots, local references, points of interests, monuments, iconic food stalls, shops, etc.

Physically mapping the hotspots, local references, points of interests, monuments, iconic food stalls, shops, etc.

Asking travellers to map the route from their start location to the metro station.

Data Points Gathering, Mapping, Literature Review

The researched focused on finding and stating the overlaps and gaps, within the literature of,

  • navigation methods;
  • qualitative spatial understanding and community interactions;
  • offline triggers for navigation;
  • user’s travel choices.

further, formulating theories to design for the following steps of experience based navigation:

  • INTENTION OF TRAVEL;
  • IDENTIFYING POINTS OF INTEREST;
  • ROUTE PLANNING;
  • NAVIGATION AND ALTERNATE METHODS;
  • USER INTERACTIONS AND INPUTS.

Ideation

Virtual Signboards​

Navigation
Social Media

Audio Tour​

Virtual Signboards is an AR aided navigation tool. It is a suggestive navigation tool, which means that instead of asserting on one path or one by one instruction to navigate, it aids by suggesting routing and detouring paths directed towards the destination.​
Navigation media is built upon the intention to break down journeys into sub-journeys with various points of interest of the users. By shifting the focus of navigation from the end point to the local spots of the city, interactions are encouraged, user’s spacial knowledge is prioritised and focus is brought to the locality of the locations that one traverses while travelling.​
Navigation media is built upon the intention to break down journeys into sub-journeys with various points of interest of the users. By shifting the focus of navigation from the end point to the local spots of the city, interactions are encouraged, user’s spacial knowledge is prioritised and focus is brought to the locality of the locations that one traverses while travelling.​

Novel Concept

Recursive Categorization

Deviation calculation of the points of interests (POIs)

Tech Exploration

Augmented Reality (AR)

Participatory Sensing Systems

Mental Model

Social Media

Audio Guides

Learning Curve

High

Low

High

Unique Experience

Encourages driver and traveller decision making.

Contrary to the current social media platforms, it encourages movememt.

Allows people to hear and follow other’s experiences. Off-screen experience.

Ergonomics

Unpleasant

Pleasant

Below Expectation

Hero's UX

Users’ journey with the platform for a travel experience that caters to the plurality in expectations, intentions, duration and other aspects of each traveller the user is travelling with..

Strategy

A socially driven and interactive navigation platform to cater to the plurality in navigation experiences.

Scope​

Structure

Skeleton

Surface

Site Map

Onboarding and Landing

Onboarding and Landing

Routes or Navigation media is a navigation aid build upon the intention to break down journeys into sub-journeys with various points of interest of the users.

Profile and Personalisation

These points of interests could be physical landmarks of the place, local spots, etc. By shifting the focus of navigation from the end point to the local spots of the  city, Interactions are encouraged, user’s spacial knowledge is prioritised and focus is brought to the locality of the locations that one traverses during their journey.

Get Inspired and Influence

These points of interest are suggested to users by other users, building collective
acknowledgement to the places in the street/city/space.

This is done through sharing images and videos as stories with geotagged locations. These stories could be invites, a popular location, live events and could also be targeting social concerns in the space.

This encourages community engagement within the users and portrays locations as place of community engagement.

Route Optimization

These are suggested to the users by calculating the measure of deviation that they must take from the shortest path, based on the intensity of their experience, from leisure to emergency. This is calculated by barring the time and keeping the deviations within the time limit. 

Route Optimization

Get out and Explore

By understanding people travel patterns and places of their liking and relevance, the navigation process is personalised by profiling users and providing points of interest based on their data.

Project Planning
and Timeline