Uploaded April 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
We consider mobile maps, the everyday smart-device-based pro- grams that locate the user, provide insights into local space, and support wayfinding – or do they? The authors collectively reflect on past infuriating experiences with failures of mobile maps as pedestrians. We synthesise these thick descriptions, what we call reflective auto-aggro-ethnographies, to identify shortcomings in mo- bile maps: hidden verticality, missing local detail, incorrect sensor data, and poor pathing. We turn to human-centred design to point out how these shortcomings should be (or, rather, should have been) addressed.
exertiongameslab.org
We consider mobile maps, the everyday smart-device-based pro- grams that locate the user, provide insights into local space, and support wayfinding – or do they? The authors collectively reflect on past infuriating experiences with failures of mobile maps as pedestrians. We synthesise these thick descriptions, what we call reflective auto-aggro-ethnographies, to identify shortcomings in mo- bile maps: hidden verticality, missing local detail, incorrect sensor data, and poor pathing. We turn to human-centred design to point out how these shortcomings should be (or, rather, should have been) addressed.
exertiongameslab.org
