Maps for dummies

This Christmas, I was in Vancouver, Canada. Of course, I would love to visit Victoria Island, even though it is winter, and there is not much to see.

From where I live (Coquitlam), I was trying to find the best route to Victoria. Well, yahoo map gives a lengthy map of 20+ directions. And my local friend gave me a much easier route.

Talking about user friendly, I think we need to define what is the "best" route for map applications. For some, best route are the ones with shortest distance. For me, who is very bad at directions, I don’t mind extra miles, but the directions must be easy to remember and easy to follow. I don’t want to flip pages of directions while driving at night. It drive me nuts.

There was one time I thought map applications are not "cool". This experience gave me some new ideas. I think for all map applications should at least gives at two directions, one shortest, one easiest. Maybe we could combine real-time traffic information with those maps as well. Am I dreaming too much?