Navigating without looking at an app

Nobody likes being outside and looking down at your phone. We all do it, but nobody likes it. In fact, being outside is one of the few times we really don’t feel like looking at a display. The maps, you say, give me turn by turn directions. They do, but what they don’t give you is what your brain needs or deserves.

You phone is in your pocket and you have turn by turn activated with Google Maps for instance. “Use the crosswalk and continue straight onto Market Street.”

This is alright because the crosswalk is something you can see and you already know and can relate to. Market Street probably means very little. This is how our brains work. You pick up your kid two blocks past that shop with the average croissants which is open early. You turn right and then pass that one house that is probably haunted or something and its there somewhere between 5–10 doors down.

“Head north on Pine Street toward 2nd Avenue.”

This doesn’t help when you don’t know in which direction north is, which basically half the time. Sad fact, but we don’t really think this way anywhere in terms of the cardinal directions, just like telling someone, “oh, just turn at the big linden tree, or just look for Polaris,” doesn’t help either..

Remember haptics? You know, the various buzzes and physical feedbacks a phone gives you? Back in the Golden Age of Mobile, back when phones were not all featureless, black, pocket monoliths and had wacky shapes and individual characteristics, this was going to be the Next Big Thing. Like most Next Big Things, it didn’t happen. However, haptics are still very possible and potentially give us another way to not look at the damn screen.

There is HapticNav which creates a haptic tunnel of sorts, essentially doing a reverse version of the ‘getting hotter, getting colder’ game. Basically, if you’re going the right way, it doesn’t vibrate.

Apple Watch will do two taps, three times in a row for left and right by twelve steady taps. This is fairly interesting because the signals are so different, but in of themselves don’t really relate to anything. The actual signal doesn’t have any meaning. There is no vocabulary.

But Google Maps has morse code navigation!

“Turn right” = Dash-dot-dot

“Turn left” = Dot-dash-dash

Just like navigating by cardinal directions or the stars, we could be using this baroque code that is a complete alphabet, which when it was in use easily was a second hand language. What if we could reacquire this and not have to look at our damn phones? What if you had typical messages, like the “Respond with Text” feature phones have had for ages, such as “Can I call you later?” but that you received haptically?

“There in 5” = dash dot dot dot dot dot dot dash dot dot dash dot dot dot dash dash dot dot dot dot dot

“Passed it” = dot dash dash dot dot dash dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dash dot dot dot dot dash

I know what you’re thinking. No way in hell Jim I’m going to ever learn this. But you could with a few goes. We develop different modal and spatial vocabularies all the time without even realising. Unlike Apple Watch telling you which way to turn, you would actually be able to tell roughly where you are, either almost or too much “there.” Eventually, or who knows, maybe even quickly, you would be able to tell the difference. You would eventually feel a pattern, not knowing the exact specifics, and know it means one thing or another.