Abstract: Going My Way consists of an application that learns our everyday routes and provides directions from points along those paths. The phone client application, based on our custom-built Contella (1) platform, logs GPS information and translates this into a route model. It sends this route information to our custom server application, integrated Microsoft's MapPoint, and computes the shortest path between your every-day route and your desired destination. Going My Way then provides directions, if available, based on personal landmarks rather than street names and intersections. We're aiming to reduce cognitive load by simplifying directions; guiding you to your destination with the knowledge of where you've been.

Problems and Motivation:

When we ask our friends how to get to a specific location (for example "Gaya" restaurant in Cambridge), our friends will probably first ask us about few places that we are likely to be familiar with, which are near or along the route to the restaurant. Those places might be public landmarks, or they might be just location (we call them "personal landmarks") that you and your friends have visited together. Alternatively, your friends might know enough about you that they can guess your personal landmarks. Then, using that knowledge, your friend will give you a direction from that personal landmark to the destination (the "Gaya" restaurant). This helps us to reduce cognitive load as well as information load. However, when we try to get directions from car navigation systems or web based map systems, it requires to provide our departure location and destination into the systems. Then the map system generates a long list of direction that does not take into account the routes that are relevant to our daily routine and therefore familiar to us. Simple information can be perceived without great effort. However, when new information is presented to us, such as a long set of driving directions, it is hard for us to perceive the information. This is because complicated information creates a high cognitive load (2) , and therefore requires a greater mental effort. In order to reduce the cognition loads, we naturally try to reduce the information as much as possible by comparing, referencing and linking to the knowledge we already know. In this project, Going My Way, we are taking this strategy for our route planer application.

1 Contella is an application that is a part of Will You Help Me, Master thesis at MIT Media-Lab 2006.
2 Chandler, P. & Sweller, J. (1991). "Cognitive Load Theory and the Format of Instruction". Cognition
and Instruction 8 (4): 293-332.