The nature of the sample
Previous research has shown that participants in online studies may not be particularly representative of the general population.1 2 Although the range of people using the internet is continually increasing, internet users are still more likely to be young, male and from higher socio-economic groups. As this can lead to difficulties in generalising the results to the wider population of navigation system users, key demographics of the present sample were examined.
The mean age of participants was 46 years. Figure 1 shows that all age bands were well represented. Clearly, many more males than females participated, although females were represented in every age band (except 35-39 years).
Although other research has shown that navigation systems are used more by males than females,3 it is likely that the extent of the gender imbalance in this study reflects the sampling method used (i.e. internet forums).
Participants were drawn from a range of countries (see figure 2), although most were from
They have held their driving licences for an average of 26 years, and have driven an average of 18,000 miles (29,000km) in the past year. Their driving experience level was calculated, and is shown in figure 4 (please click here for the classification scheme). Clearly most participants were experienced or very experienced drivers.
Figure 5 shows that the majority of participants used separate or PDA-based navigation systems. There was a fairly even split (57.8% vs 42.2%) between those for whom the featured system was their first and those who had used other systems previously. Participants had been using their current system for an average of 12 months (median value reported).
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