Use Case Comparison
Contrasting walking system use cases to align design choices with context, users, and outcomes.
Contrasting walking system use cases to align design choices with context, users, and outcomes.
Walking systems serve markedly different purposes across contexts. A commuter’s need for reliability is not the same as a tourist’s interest in discovery, and an accessibility-first journey has constraints that a leisure stroll may not. A clear use case comparison surfaces these distinctions and prevents the habitual drift towards one-size-fits-all routing. It also clarifies where spatial optimisation should give way to platial qualities such as safety, culture, or tranquillity.
Comparisons are most useful when they connect user goals to design implications: data requirements, interface styles, routing criteria, evaluation metrics, and ethical considerations. This section sets out core use cases and shows how their priorities diverge and overlap, enabling practitioners to assemble systems that are both technically robust and experientially relevant.
Leisure walking privileges experience over efficiency. Users value scenic quality, diversity, and opportunities for serendipity. Systems should emphasise qualitative attributes (greenery, views, cultural texture), offer alternative route variants, and support pausing or meandering without penalising the user for “inefficiency”. Evaluation focuses on satisfaction, perceived enjoyment, and discovery rather than time saved.
Commuters prioritise punctuality, predictability, and legibility. Designs should foreground directness, safe crossings, and time estimates that account for signals, crowding, and surface speed. Interfaces need clarity and low cognitive load. Evaluation is dominated by reliability metrics (on-time arrival, variance), alongside perceived safety on routine routes.
Health-oriented use cases integrate pacing, rest opportunities, and adherence to programmes. The system should represent gradients, surfaces, and bench availability, and allow for prescribed intensity zones or clinician-defined constraints. Success is measured through adherence, perceived exertion, and well-being outcomes, not simply distance or speed.
Touristic walks combine navigation with interpretation. Narrative overlays, landmark sequencing, timed waypoints, and multilingual content become central. The interface should balance guidance with opportunities for off-itinerary exploration. Evaluation blends satisfaction, learning outcomes, and cultural engagement.
Accessibility-first routes place barrier-free travel at the core: kerb cuts, step-free continuity, minimum widths, lighting, and predictable surfaces. Routing must respect strict constraints (maximum gradients, avoidance of steps) and expose rationale for choices. Evaluation foregrounds route validity for diverse mobility aids, perceived safety, and effort minimisation.
After-dark or situational safety use cases weight visibility, activity density, and social cues. Systems should integrate lighting, active frontage, and temporal patterns of footfall, and provide transparent explanations of trade-offs. Evaluation considers perceived security and avoidance of known risks while avoiding stigmatising representations.
Educational walks support structured observation and note-taking. They require waypoint authoring, media capture, and lightweight offline operation. Success is measured by task completion, learning goals, and trace quality rather than travel-time metrics.
Early discussions discussed five dimensions drive design decisions. Primary objective (efficiency vs experience) sets routing priorities. Constraints define hard requirements such as accessibility thresholds or safety rules. Qualities specify the experiential attributes to maximise (scenic value, cultural interest, tranquillity). Interface mode ranges from strict turn-by-turn to narrative or exploratory designs. Finally, evaluation must match intent: reliability for commuting, enjoyment for leisure, adherence for health, inclusivity for accessibility.
Treating these dimensions as configurable layers enables modular architectures where a base spatial model is enriched with platial attributes and user-specific policies. This approach avoids fragmented codebases while maintaining contextual sensitivity across deployments.
Use case distinctions translate directly into data and UX choices. Commuting benefits from real-time signals, crossing delay models, and concise visual hierarchies; leisure and tourism benefit from participatory annotations, narrative content, and options for scenic detours; accessibility-first routing demands high-fidelity micro-infrastructure data and transparent constraint handling. Ethically, safety and accessibility cases require particular care to avoid reinforcing bias while still offering meaningful guidance.
Where use cases overlap—such as a tourist who also needs step-free access—the system should support compound objectives. Multi-criteria routing, explicit sliders for trade-offs, and explainable recommendations help users understand and control outcomes, while evaluation frameworks capture the right success measures for the combined goal.