Location Selection

From MobileDesign

A generic interface to obtain, save, and manage the user's location across a variety of applications and device capabilities.

[edit] Design

When needing user location, provide a screen that enables a number of methods to set it, not just automatic location or postal code entry. The complete set includes:

• Home, which can be the user's postal code entered during registration or can be empty until first used. Provide a "Change" page for the rare case when the user's home region changes. May not be useful for travel-centric applications, in which case it should be moved away from the top location, or removed entirely.
• Favorites, which should be an automatically generated list of locations, with the most frequently used locations at the top of the list. Especially useful when use is likely to center around known locations; may even be useful for travel applications.
• Find Me, which activates the device's location fetching API. Do not include if automatic location detection is not supported; this will vary by device so should be detected at install or by polling for available services when the page is loaded. A few devices will have attachable, remote GPS units, which make this more complicated.
• Elsewhere, allowing the user to enter postal code, city, or address. When necessary, take the user to a disambiguation page to clarify input. Do not require the user to enter any more than necessary. Accept vague, but valid, user-entered locations (such as postal code only) without requiring additional details. An example of acceptable inputs, from less to more detailed:
  • Zip Code only
  • City & State only
  • Zip or City/State plus Intersection (of two roadways)
  • Zip or City/State plus Street Address
  • In certain cases, direct entry of coordinates (e.g. Lat/Long) may be desirable, but this is not common

Determine priority of fields to avoid errors the user must clear; if zip and city/state do not match, the system should make one the priority, or be able to detect which has changed, and presume that the other was simply forgotten so should be ignored.

• Name location, applied to any "Find Me" or "Elsewhere" location specified. This may be related to the "favorites" item above, and follow any existing model elsewhere in the device UI of naming a bookmark.

The screen also needs "Save" and "Cancel" softkeys, buttons, or links.

[edit] Applicable Devices and Platforms

All mobile devices and applications have some degree of location available, they can achieve this through a few different processes such as Cell, Sector, Triangulation, GPS Telemetry, WAAS, AGPS, WLANs & PANs.

For a better understanding of how the technology works see Introduction to Location Technologies - Not Just GPS.

[edit] When Used

Use when location is needed at discrete, infrequent points in time. For applications that need frequent or continuous updates, rely on automatic location only.

Some examples of context for the possible uses of mobile location technology.

Location to reduce data entry

Movie & other tickets

Weather

Traffic

Home finder

Parking/car finder

Location as substitute for some sort of NFC interaction

Mall 2.0

Order Starbucks

Graffiti wall

Enhanced serendipity

Beyond what I see – finding that store you never knew was there

Near me

LBS date/meet (category)

Push local advertising

Tracking and geofencing

Kid finder/fencer – must be within 3 blocks of home/school

Dog tracker/fencer

House arrest systems

Area-based access

Area- or route-based billing

Asset tracking

Just-in-time information

Business travel concierge

Road trip concierge

Traveling salesman problem/errand optimizer

When do I leave for the meeting

What’s for lunch further down the road and not behind me

Transit (e.g. bus arrival time)

Best taxi area

Airline tracking (when will plane land)

Building directory

Elevator arrival time

Tagging of locations

Police (speed trap) detector

Geocaching

Geotagging (of other content types)

Friend finder

Locative media

Locative games & learning

Contextual task list (e.g., OmniFocus)

Beyond location as context

Speed as context (change UI, change function …)

Altitude as context

Location-enhanced search (e.g. bookstore=context)

Asset locating as context (e.g. play video of DVD you picked up)

Weather as context

Public infrastructure & services

Better weather radio – where I am not whole county

Emergency services (beyond 911, e.g. OnStar)

Public safety/security services category (best route to the fire, find fire hydrant, geotag all tickets…)

Public works category (City GIS Db integration, find the manhole…)

[edit] Rationale

Devices, and plans, have varying ability to use location services on the phone. Indeed, some users may have location turned off due to privacy concerns. This should not prevent many location-enabled applications to be useful on all devices.

This design gives the user a variety of methods for entering location data, and saves data for further use without getting in the user's way.