| emanon 2006-03-26, 5:48 pm |
| I recently bought City Navigator North America. Real nice compliment to the
topo set I already had and this filled in a lot of gaps for urban
navigation. The address entry for searching took a bit to get used to, but
there is still a problem with that I can't seem to get around.
To test the unit and play with the interface, I searched from my current
home address. Worked fine. I also searched some other local addresses. No
problems. Next, I tried an old address I used to live at in Phoenix. (The
house number posted here is bogus, but the street and zip are real.) The
address was 99999 North 13 Street, Phoenix, AZ 85022.
My problem was I could not get a listing for that address. I also tried
nearby intersections, 7th Street and Bell, 7th Street & Union Hills, but
could not get a match either. In desperation, I tried looking for the Police
Department on West Washington Street at zip 85002, but there is no match
there either.
A couple of suggestions for Garmin in this:
1) Since you already have to enter the number separately from street
name, separate the direction as well. This would ease scrolling through a
list of hundreds of names. You also may not know a direction initially.
2) If you don't know the direction or zip, take the entered information
and show a filtered list of possibilities. If I'm going someplace I've never
been before, I may not know a zip or street type. I may know it is near 7th
Ave and Washington, but I may not know if it is Washington Road, Street or
Avenue. (BTW, I lived the original address I was searching for 10 year and
STILL can't tell you if Bell is a Road, Boulevard, Avenue or anything else!)
I don't believe these problems are insurmountable. I'm also pretty sure it
is something I am doing / not doing correctly. But it would be nice to
simplify the entry when you may not know all the information.
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