Car Navigation Systems

Posted on September 7, 2005 by John Hunter

Topic: Management Improvement

Thinking About in-car Navigation Systems by Robert Scoble:

What’s frustrating is there’s no way to report a mistake. So, everyone who has Toyota’s system is doomed to repeat the same errors.

While Toyota is doing great things they still have things to learn. As the quote above indicates they don’t think like software companies. Software companies have learned to take every advantage of the internet to collect feedback. And those used to such system will find fault with any company that fails to do so, as shown above. And for good reason, failing to collect such feedback is a poor practice.

Another thing? We searched for Starbucks at least four times this weekend. Every time Dave needed to spell S – T – A – R – B – U – C – K – S out completely.

Why can’t the system learn after a few times that you’re a Starbucks freak and just permanently put that in the memory. Dave even went further. He’d like the system to say “you’re near a Starbucks, wanna go there?”

Having to type out the entire word over and over seems like a poor design.

I still can’t wait to get one in my next car.

And this statement is still true. While certain aspects of the current system could be improved this is likely an innovation that will become an expected feature in cars in the future. Hopefully with a better mechanism for collecting feedback.

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