Driving with Microsoft Streets and Trips

In the early days auto GPS nav systems required users to download maps from an ever-changing repository on the web or from disks or memory modules provided by the map vendors or unit manufacturer. The newest systems contain maps for the entire US (and other countries) that don’t require you to pull to the side of the road as you cross the South Dakota border and completely reprogram the system.
I think that Garmin has produced some of the best of these units. Their maps were probably as accurate as any, but their user interface was far more suitable for use from a moving car. Their display was not nearly as large as the units built into a car’s dash, but what they display is more what I needed to get where I was going. I’ll talk about programming in a minute. The problem with these “unintegrated” units is that they were not tied to the car’s fuel system. Units that did measure RPM and fuel flow were, well… pretty crude and unreliable. They also required quite a bit of mechanical knowledge and cutting the fuel line—scary.
GPS units generally take quite some time to sync with their satellites so they don’t really know where you are until they do. Most units remember where they were and need very few satellites in view to make a good guess as to your current location. That’s the key—all GPS systems need to be able to “see” the satellites so the antenna needs to be outside the car or with a relatively clear view of the sky. This means they won’t work in an airplane unless you can stick the antenna to the window (without the flight attendant calling the Federal Marshal). In a car you must place the GPS receiver on the dash or outside the car. These units don’t do well at all in stone or concrete canyons or deep in a forest. Keep that in mind if you expect to use a hand-held device to find Times Square.
Over the last five years or so I’ve purchased two cars with (supposedly top-line) GPS systems built into the dash. While both of these units (in the Infinity QX4 and the Acura MDX) had displays that were larger and easier to read than dash-top units like the Garmin Street Pilot, they lacked many of the Garmin features like real-time speed, altitude and time-to-destination read-outs. For example, the Garmin unit knew that I was traveling at 38 mph and I had 38 miles to go so it said it would take one hour to get there. As I got through the traffic and picked up speed, it would constantly update the time-to-distance (TTD) value in real time. Both of the car systems based all TTD calculations on 55mph—relatively useless.
The best of these units have a UI designed for drivers who don’t have more than a moment to retrieve information from the display or select an option. They can zoom in or out with a single keystroke or provide audible and visible queues that a change in course is due. All of these units give warning that a turn is approaching—usually 60, 30 and 10 seconds before the turn. Since the built-in units are tied to the car’s audio system, the driver can clearly hear the announcements and (importantly) the volume is adjustable and mutes the car’s audio system. Yes, these announcements can be quite irritating, but when driving in an unfamiliar city, it’s important for the driver to keep his or her eyes on the road and not on a constantly changing map.
Now, as to the Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006. This package is a Windows application designed to create turn-by-turn maps for someone in the right seat to read. That’s not the driver’s seat in the US. Generally, IMHO the printed maps are too hard to read and drive at the same time. The application can also be used with a GPS receiver plugged into the system’s UPS port but the Windows metaphor is not suitable for this type of application. I’ve just used Streets and Trips 2006 on several trips that took over 3 hours each—most through the bowels of large cities. Each time I got lost despite being used to GPS navigation systems and being (somewhat) familiar with the cities in question. I had reviewed the route beforehand but I found that the instructions given by Streets and Trips was less than adequate. I was also plagued by several irresolvable problems:
• The computer generated voice announcements which were required as the display was too difficult to see at 50 mph) were (to be kind) pitiful. They speech was unclear, spoken too quickly and sometimes layered on top of other announcements. Compared to the in-car voice systems, Microsoft’s offering was sad. I know Microsoft has better speech generation technology—it’s apparently not in use here.
• The voice announcements were also not loud enough to hear over normal car background noise. With my laptop’s amplifiers turned up all the way, the sounds were still too quiet to hear. I had to resort to using a headset in one ear to get any intelligible sense out of the messages. The application had no option to increase the volume.
• As I approached a waypoint, the voice commands were increasingly confusing as it cobbled the message with other “reaching waypoint” messages.
• It seemed to me that on several occasions, the application did not properly anticipate upcoming turns—it would say “Turn-left in point one miles” as the exit passed by on the right.
• All of the automobile units automatically recalculated the route when I drove off the route (which happened all too often), however, Streets and Trips did not. I had to press F3 to get the application to recalculate. However, if the focus was not set on the map the F3 key would not work.
• I found that I had to regularly zoom in or out on the map to get a feel for the distance yet to travel. The Microsoft application did not provide this data—only the distance to the next segment or turn. Not knowing how much longer the trip was to take is a big problem. The problem is that unless the windows focus was set on the map, the + and – keys did not work. Again, the Windows metaphor got in the way.
• Driving / turn instructions were shown at the bottom of the map in another window (and voiced by the application), and these were in a large font so they were easier to read, but the distance to travel was shown at the far right—something like this:
Turn left on RT 66 ...................................................................................................................................... 1 mile.
It would be easier to read if it said:
In 1 mile, turn left on RT 66.
• When the application was restarted after going on standby or restarting in the morning, the left-hand GPS window had to be completely reprogrammed. These settings should have been persisted between shutdown and standby states.
• The application gave no indication of time-to-destination. It did provide a real-time speed display but it would have been better to have this critical information displayed in real time—if only to give the kids in the back seat the answer to their question “Are we there yet daddy?”
• All of the other automotive units were designed to assist drivers as they are trying to find gas or food along the way. The Microsoft product could display nearby food and fuel locations, but there did not seem to be an easy way to make an impromptu stop. There needs to be an easy way to interface with the application using pre-canned commands like “find nearest MacDonald’s” or “find nearest gas station”. These must be activated without the mouse (through the keyboard) or via voice response as used on all of the newest automotive systems.
IMHO, Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006 needs a new user-interface—one that does not depend on the mouse at all or on the user having to switch focus to gain access to critical functionality. Some of the basic functionality is there, but since the user is expected to use a laptop on the passenger seat, Microsoft needs to be critically aware of safety issues and how the application must perform in a noisy environment—having to use a headset is not an option. It’s against the law in most states.