Attitudes on Mobile Navigational Applications
Exploring the impacts of ubiquitous mobile technology on situational awareness.
An undergraduate study conducted at the University of Central Florida.
As a member of a research team, I assisted with the literature review, development of a questionnaire, conducting the survey, analyzing the results, and co-authoring a final report in addition to presenting the project at several regional conferences.
Though a project for academic purposes, the implications of this research impact society as a whole. As the ubiquity of technology increases, more research needs to be done to study the impact that technology has on situational awareness, and demonstrating quantitatively how automation can mitigate some of these issues. This study acts as an introduction to some of this research.
Research Goal
The primary goal in this investigation is to understand the use of mobile navigation application in a usability context as it relates to driver distraction. This goal was derived out of a question regarding the impacts of usability on situational awareness and a precursor for research on trust in automated systems.
Experimental Design
The study consisted of a 61 question survey about usability, driving habits, and demographics taken by over 400 participants.
Due to the nature of the academic research (time and resource constraints) we used an electronic survey method to gather our data. While we are aware of the implicit biases that self-report measures incur, the was the most feasible option to obtain the data needed.
The questionnaire included 5 sections: Preferences, Driving, Usability, Personality, and Demographics
We believed this combination of questions would allow us to paint a broad picture of our participants that could be later analyzed within specific contexts. Our "Preferences" and "Driving" measures were created for the purpose of this study, while Usability was measured using the USE Scale, Personality was measured using a modified IPIP / Big 5 personality inventory. Finally our Demographics section was another combination of driving demographic information (type of vehicle, driving and accident experience, etc.) socio-economic status demographics, and technology demographics (familiarity with systems, type of mobile operating system, etc.)
All participants of the study read an informed consent letter and completed the informed consent form prior to completing the 15-minute online questionnaire. Participants were first asked if they had a driver’s license, which allowed them to complete the remainder of the questionnaire. Respondents who did not have a driver’s license still received credit for their participation but were not able to answer any further questions. The study also included a manipulation check to ensure participant attentiveness and to assist with validation of the results.
The data was computed using a linear regression model using the stepwise function, as well as bivariate correlations, ANOVAs, t-tests, and running crosstabs.
Results
Key results indicated no usability difference between the most common navigation applications (Google Maps and Apple Maps), however there was a highly significant correlation of users (r=-.233, p=.000) using Google Maps on iPhones (83% of participants surveyed reported using iOS), meaning there is another factor other than usability impacting a user's choice of navigation application.
Other interesting results were a result of the previously mentioned demographic measures such as:
Significant positive correlation between self-ratings of being a “good driver” and gender (r=-.238, p=.000).
This means that females were more likely to report that they were good drivers.
Type of phone and gender (r=-.125, p=.012).
This reports that females were likely than males to have iPhones. A note with this correlation is that the gender population split was not even, so this correlation may be a result of that.
Type of phone and extroversion (F=6.328, p=.012)
This indicates that iPhone users are more likely to be extroverts.
Other Descriptive Results:
34% (n=115) said they were most familiar with Google Maps
28% (n=95) said they were most familiar with Apple Maps
36% (n=112) said they used some combination of Apple, Google, or Other (such as Waze)
71% of participants preferred having both verbal and visual instructions
Applying Findings
While not explicitly a usability study, it was a clear component of our research and had we more extensive usability testing experience, we would have liked to further study the implications of usability on situational awareness, especially considering there was no statistical difference in the usability ratings of Google Maps and Apple Maps.
The results in regards to verbal instructions may increase situational awareness, but this increase is negated by the “double checking” of the visual instructions. This statistic interests us to expand our research to include a situational awareness aspect, especially considering the increased interest in verbal assistants (e.g. Google Assistant, Siri, Alexa, Cortana, etc.)
This study serves as an excellent introduction into comparative analyses as well as rudimentary usability testing. As mentioned, resource limitations prevented us from doing more in-depth data collection, such as follow-up interviews to further inquire about the popularity of Google Maps. We also would have liked to utilize a simulation component to test situational awareness in real time.