Charles Chung

What's the issue

Navigation provided by mobile apps is one of the most widely used means for people looking for path suggestions when discovering unfamiliar places.

However, in our observation of the most widely used digital mapping and navigation system — the Google Maps, we noticed that users sometimes find it hard to judge their location and face direction, thus unable to recognize the suggested path correctly. Google Maps fails to give understandable path suggestions especially when navigating through wandering, narrow, and often closely angled routes in Asian cities such as the one I live in.

How we address the issue

We utilize Google Map API to get the suggested path and the corresponding polyline of the path. We exploited an algorithm which combines gyro sensor data, GPS data and data collected from Google ARCore package to determine user's location, face direction, and current moving direction. Our Unity background engine then adjusts the projection angle and offsets the polyline from the middle of the road to user’s actual location (often by the sidewalk). The corresponding path suggestion then is projected through the mobile camera of the user. Our system is designed to augment the Google Maps navigation.

How good is it

Currently, we are conducting user study of this location-based Augmented Reality (AR) technology. We have found two challenging routes in the city of Hsinchu, Taiwan, and we are implementing a within-subject study to understand the usability and the User Burden (Hyewon Suh, 2016) of using the Google Maps plus our system compares to solely using the Google Maps.

With the post-trial self-rating, performance measures, and video/audio recorded for qualitative data analysis, we are hoping not only to examine the usability of our functions, but also provide insights to the design of AR pedestrian navigation.

What's my role in the project

I am the leader of the user study phase. Also I co-developed the research app, tweaking the app to enhance its reliability and made it fit into our experimental environment.

This research is a perfect practice of my ability to lead the design and conduct of a user study. It provides me a chance to learn how to develop apps on the Unity platform as well.