This is a criticism of the Garmin GPS product Nüvi and most importantly its software.
While in the fields of physical design and graphical interface, Garmin has outperformed TomTom, it seems that Garmin hasn’t bothered to pay any attention to the human-computer interaction aspects of its product. As consequence, that simple but powerful omission made the Nüvi overall THE worst commercial electronic gadget I have ever used.
The “home” screen
Very simply put, the “home” screen serves no purpose. Once you turn the GPS on, it shows a legal disclaimer. Completely useless. The car doesn’t ask you to accept that an accident can happen while you’re driving. Neither should the GPS. It’s simply time wasted every single time you use it.
Then past it, there is the “home” screen. From there, you choose to either plan a trip or show the map. But that also means that after pressing power, you need a minimum of 2 presses for the GPS to actually do anything. TomTom requires 0. Again, time completely wasted.
The screen could completely have been removed by directing the GPS to the map screen after boot. If he wishes to choose a rout, then he can press a “go to” button. This way, the user makes 1 press or 0 press depending on the case instead of 1 press always.
Worst even, is the fact that this is the hub screen to every other screen. In other words, every other screen stems from this root screen. That is absolutely retarded. The root screen should be the map. If then user is already in the map and wishes to make a change, he has to press “Menu” and then choose to plan another rout or go back to the map. What? If the only choices are “go to” and “map” (where I already am at). The only reason I would press “Menu” on the map screen is to plan another rout.
WORST even. Once you go several steps into the rout planning screens and want to go back to the map, well, you can’t simply press cancel or back. You can’t even repeatedly press back to get back to the map. Because you’d end up in the home screen where the choice to go to the map is in the middle of the screen instead of where the back button was, in the corner, where you can press without looking. Again introducing an additional step that is not logically necessary and wasting time. Time that you don’t have while driving. Nor did they make the “go to” and the “map” button to occupy the full half of the screen, making it even a worse case of usability according to Fitt’s law.
The dialog boxes
First of all, dialog boxes have no place in a GPS. The purpose of a dialog box is for the user to stop all other activities until he acknowledges an information or makes a choice. No such situation exists in the usage of a GPS.
The Nüvi displays a dialog box when the battery’s low, when satellite reception is lost, and when the power plug becomes unplugged. All abuses of the usage of dialog boxes. Because when the GPS’s battery level does effectively drop low, the Nüvi simply ends its purpose until you press it. That is again an additional step required for the routine use of the Nüvi and absolutely absurd. A car doesn’t lock its wheels, block its windshield and end all its purposes when its fuel becomes low. A cellphone can have a dialog box shown when its SIM card becomes removed because the cellphone cannot function without the SIM card and requires user intervention. That is not the case with low battery. A temporary pop-up or a warning symbol suffices.
Same for the satellite reception. A dialog blocks all other functions of the device when it couldn’t reach the satellites for a period of time. Fun information but what value is added by this step? What’s the point and when is the time to pressing “Ok”? If connection is made in the meantime, the device still requires the Ok press for it to be useful. If the user doesn’t press Ok, what does the GPS do? No feedback. The GPS should simply be always looking for the GPS while its on. That is the purpose of turning on a Global Positioning Satellite device.
If the user unplugs the power while the GPS is on, it shows a dialog asking whether the user wants to turn off the device or leave it on. If the user doesn’t interact in 30 seconds, it will turn off. In the meantime, it will fulfil no purpose. Again a design reflecting stupidity. It should simply have a non-modal button saying “Keep on” at the bottom of the map instead of showing a dialog. Consider all 3 cases. If you wish it off immediately, it’s easier to press a hard button (the power button) than to press a soft button. And in the modal case, the GPS is useless until you do so. If you wish it to close by itself, it requires the same action from the user (nothing), but in the modal case, the GPS is useless until you do so. If you wish it on, you press one button in both cases. But in the modal case, the GPS is useless until you do.
While these seem like small problems, it’s actually comparable to having the GPS turn off at various times during its use and simply makes this device frustrating, awkward and dangerous to use. I would take a TomTom any day.
