14 DAY TRIAL // Navigation tools these days can be pretty advanced and accurate and the amount of data available should be enough for anyone, even in the more remote locations. Yet good old fashioned 'asking for directions' is still usually the best way to find a place and navigate in an unknown area, the digital solutions, while accurate, fail to convey the data in a way that makes more sense to us humans. Google realized this and made extensive studies trying to improve the experience by making directions in Google Maps read out more like the ones one of your friends give you, with plenty of landmarks and other visual cues to help guide you.
"We discovered that street signs or names tend to be less important than landmarks such as civic buildings and gas stations. A friend giving you directions might tell you to 'Turn left at the school' or 'Go past the convenience store'," Dave Walker and John Leen, software engineers at Google wrote.
"Our new algorithm determines which of these landmarks are most useful for navigation, based on visibility, importance, and closeness to the turns that you're making. We now combine landmark data, counted turns ("the 2nd right"), intersection names, and road names, and try to use whatever information is most relevant and useful. We're using landmarks in two ways: to identify where users need to turn, and to provide confirmation that they're on the right track," they added.
Google Maps has introduced more 'human' directions for a few months now making the indications more natural. Things like “take the 2nd right” and “slight left” are easier to put in perspective than just “turn left” for example. Google also found that most people wanted more than just directions on what to do next, they needed to be sure that they're on the right track so the dev team also introduced more cues related to this like “head east on 9th street” or “continue on ...”
Now, it takes things one step further by adding landmarks into the mix both to indicate where there is a course change, but also to confirm that they haven't missed a turn. For example, the directions might read “turn left towards train station” and add “pass by gas station (on the right).” These visual cues are not only easier to understand, but they're also a lot more useful than street names as many times street signs are easily missed. These new 'landmark' features are only live in India at the moment, apparently, but will no doubt make it to other locations as well.