GPS: Labeling and doing two things at the same time

GPS navigation for cars still have a way to go before perfect. A while ago, as a passenger from Oslo to Lista in Norway, I got to examine a TomTom GPS screen real estate a bit more thorough, and found an odd detail. Whenever driving South-West, the arrow in the lower left corner of the map pointed towards South-East (and the label saying SW). Driving South-East, the arrow pointed South-West (label saying SE). In addition, the car was indicated by an arrow without any labeling. This one always pointed up.

It took a little while to figure out. It seemed from the suns position that the arrows north and south direction was always correct, but th east and west always mirrored.

The solution was really simple, The arrow in the lower left corner pointed north, and the label on this arrow explained the direction of the unlabeled arrow illustrating the car.

My guess is that this error didn’t show up in any usability testing since it wasn’t crucial for it’s regular functions. You have no problem getting from A to B with this little flaw. Only when having too much time on my hand, I saw the error.

One easy fix would be to label the arrow in the lower left corner “N” for north, and maybe label the arrow indicating the car with the actual direction. Other suggestions?

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