We would get back onto the route, only for the satnav to send us another way. After a trip of constant rerouting, we came home with an idea that became Good Route.
The frustration was simple. We wanted help following a journey we had chosen. Instead, we kept having to work out what the navigation was doing and how to get back to our plan.
For a motorcycle ride, that matters. A particular road might be the reason for the trip: the bends, the landscape, a village along the way. Arriving sooner can mean missing what you went out to enjoy.
Modern navigation is remarkably good at answering “How do I get there?” Giving it a satisfactory answer to “Which way would I like to go?” is more complicated.
Part of the difficulty sits beneath the familiar map. GPS helps a device establish its position. The navigation software then works out which road it is on, calculates a route and gives instructions. These are separate tasks. Knowing where you are does not tell the software what matters to you.
Apple Maps and Google Maps bring those tasks together so smoothly that we rarely notice the distinctions. Google describes using navigation data to reflect traffic conditions and suggest faster alternatives. That is useful when you want to reach an appointment or avoid a growing queue. On a leisurely ride, a saving of a few minutes may carry much less weight. Google Maps Help
Developing Good Route starts with that difference in priorities. The aim is to help someone follow their chosen journey, including when things stop going to plan.
A missed turning is a useful example. Should the app take you back, find somewhere sensible to rejoin, or calculate a fresh route to the destination? Each could be the right answer. It depends on what you would miss.
A point placed on a map might mark a café where friends are waiting. It might simply be there to make the route follow a particular road. Treating both as compulsory stops can produce instructions that make sense to the software but very little sense to the rider.
This is where an apparently straightforward app becomes an interesting design problem. The route needs to carry enough of the rider’s intention to make those decisions useful, without turning planning into an elaborate setup exercise.
The same restraint matters on the road. Instructions need to be clear at a glance, and changes need to be understandable. Every extra prompt asks for attention from someone who already has something more important to do.
CarPlay brings another consideration. It provides access to supported navigation apps through a vehicle’s screen and controls; the app still supplies the routing decisions. Apple Maps and Google Maps can both appear there, but a familiar dashboard does not make their behaviour identical. Apple’s CarPlay overview
For Good Route, these questions need testing through actual journeys. A convincing route on a development screen is only a starting point. What matters is how the guidance behaves at an awkward junction, after a deliberate detour, or when a rider carries on past a suggested turn.
The trip that started this gave us a specific frustration to work on. It also raised a broader question about helpful software: how does it adapt to changing circumstances while respecting a decision someone has already made?
Sometimes the longer road is the one we intended to take.