Considering individual cognitive ability in the provision of usable navigation assistance

It is noted that the design of vehicle navigation aids has tended to emphasize hardware innovations and software optimized to this hardware. User interfaces generally adopt a single paradigm for the presentation of navigation information. It is argued that this assumes a homogeneous user community and ignores individual driver ability in spatial cognition, attention, and other problem-solving issues. It is suggested that the next generation of aids should be designed with more attention to the manner in which people structure, recall, and utilize spatial information naturally. Literature on spatial knowledge, individual differences, and human subject categorization is reviewed. Recommendations are made for the design of future user interfaces in order to provide more usable navigation assistance to individual drivers.<>