Where Are You Now? Design for the Location Revolution

Relative Location

Another useful dimension of location data is relative location—the relationship in physical space between two or more people, places, or objects. Relative location data makes possible the first wave of mobile social networking applications—dodgeball, Loopt, and even the location plug-in for AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)—which inform users when friends or colleagues are in their vicinity. The value of this kind of communication is immediately apparent. I enjoy keeping up with friends and colleagues using LinkedIn or Facebook, but often wish I could have more personal interactions with people in my network rather than just relating in digital space.

Of course, such social networking services can very quickly come up against the question of privacy. Clearly, social networking applications must let users control their online presence information and thus prevent other users from locating them, if they want to remain out of contact. But the problem remains that no controls or settings can guarantee users’ anonymity once they start using such applications. Will location-based services make real privacy even more elusive? The answer is probably yes. But these examples represent only the beginnings of location-based services.

Location Data As a Design Element

Soon, UX designers must grapple with the problem of integrating location information into applications and bridge the physical and digital worlds.

Filtering

Location can serve as a powerful filter for data—either delivering specific information or removing unnecessary options depending on location. Some enterprise-level business applications already take advantage of location-based contextual data. For instance, UPS drivers can access data relating to a specific delivery address, so if a condominium association requires a pass code for a security gate, that code can appear alongside other information when a driver views the next address for a package delivery. Similarly, SAP has developed a context-aware sales order-entry system that streamlines a customer’s selection of products based on location. I can imagine a construction company using site location as a filter for their collaboration software. When a project manager arrived at a job, the correct blueprints would already be queued up on his PDA.

Tagging

Even more powerfully, we can tag content using location data. In the article “A Design Approach for the Geospatial Web,” Julian Bleecker, head of the Mobile Media Lab at the University of Southern California, shares this vision:

“By tagging content and data with geographic metadata—effectively giving content a location in the real world—it is possible to imagine new metaphors to describe experiences in geographic space. We’ll stumble across lost pet notices on our way to work; freeway exit ramps will have indicators for a quicker route to the beach on city streets during a busy weekend; standing in front of a local theater will enable you to find movie reviews left by previous patrons. It’s incredibly exciting to think of the possibilities. Perhaps our metaphors for managing content will change as the geospatial Web grows in consequence. It may be that someday in the near future, we’ll be talking about leaving our files, rather than saving them.”

Conclusion

Consumers are already anticipating such user experiences. A recent television advertisement for Lowe’s, a chain of stores that markets home improvement products, features a man who, while shopping for an appliance, converses on his mobile phone with family members who are strategically located at competing retailers, while a Lowe’s salesperson patiently waits. The man’s question to his family: “How much does it cost there?” He is comparing pricing data in real time. While the point of the ad is that Lowe’s has the best price, the challenge, from a user experience perspective, is to figure out a way to provide the same data, without requiring family members to drive to different locations. Of course, Lowe’s might not like actually having their washing machines geotagged with competitors’ pricing information.

The power of online shopping, arguably, is customers’ ability to do product research and compare pricing at a variety of retailers. Conversely, with the bricks-and-mortar experience, customers benefit from actually being able to touch products, look them over closely, and assess their quality and craftsmanship. The mobile experience has the potential to enable customers to bridge the online and offline worlds—allowing them to access pricing, reviews, and other valuable data while in a physical store examining a product.

The mobile space is still the Wild West of interactive applications. A host of competing platforms, nascent standards, and carrier restrictions make the medium a challenging one for designers to work in. Balancing technical requirements with imaginative design possibilities is no easy task. But the potential and the need for location-aware services is seemingly boundless.