You’ve described an exciting future that, I believe, will happen.

Thanks for a very provocative post.

Matt: Honestly, I don’t know yet. As you point out, although there are guiding principles, we form mental models in a manner specific to ourselves. We can of course design systems that have modal flexbility: ie. ego- and allo-centric models, and allow the user to switch between them – but this feels like the classic design cop-out of providing an option instead of a design decision. Technological solutions to wayfinding problems are in their infancy, and I think we’ll only find the answer to your wise question through substantial amounts of trial and error.

Vitorio: Interesting references, I’ll check them out. Thanks.

Bob: Absolutely. Without the chance to practice spatial organisation, perhaps that ability will weaken. I dearly hope that designers of wayfinding technology will find the right balance, whereby their systems support rather than replace our own navigational tactics.

One addendum; I realise guiltily that I neglected to credit some of the material that made this article possible. In particular, Adam Greenfield’s Everyware, the Legible London research by AIG (www.legiblelondon.info), Peter Morville’s Ambient Findability and Rosati and Resmini’s talk ‘Toward a cross-context IA’ are important reading for anyone who wants to explore these topics further.

Unspoken, however, is the value of serendipitous discovery as an organizing principle, geospatially as in other dimensions.

My partner recently took a roadtrip with a girlfriend, intending to explore a wholly new urban milieu. How disappointed she was, then, when her friend incessantly turned to her onboard GPS to solve all their navigational “problems” — in fact, generating new problems in terms of inadequate interfaces and faulty data. The trip became a tedious, often blithering experience of technology rather than an appreciation of a heretofore unknown landscape.

Without unduly romanticizing the pleasure of being lost — the basis of the labyrinth and the maze — I question whether a more perfect wayfinding technology would result in losing not just the overt joy of discovery but also some undetected human ability to make sense amidst uncertainty…and wonder.

How can the future of wayfinding devices support these strategies, or improve their downfalls? How to design a route guidance system that requires minimal mental rotation and cognitive resources while also providing geospatial information to support the mental map? How can we facilitate the creation of a mental map for those individuals who lack the ability to code with allocentric strategies?