WhereIs Redesign

It seems WhereIs Australia is getting a face lift and much needed usability improvements. Gone are the six clicks to get your directions and cryptic instructions, now it’s replaced with a simple, enter start and end destination (on the one page no less – AND you don’t have to pick the street type from a drop down anymore) and bang you’ve got your results. No more “Did you really mean exactly what you just typed in or were you only joking” page. Better yet, the Wacky Mario Ramp feature has been turned off. For those of you not familiar with WhereIs.com.au and Brisbane’s roads – Brisbane has a lot of on and off ramps that go winding around at all kinds of weird angles and quite often one ramp leads onto another which leads to another. If you were unfortunate enough to have to navigate through such a section (like the rather central Riverside Expressway) using WhereIs instructions, you’d be trying to follow something like: (Straight) South East FreeWay (Straight) Riverside Express Way (Right) Ramp (Left) Ramp (Straight) Ramp (Left) Ramp (End) Destination Needless to say you had no chance whatsoever. Now however you’d get something more like: Turn left at CORONATION DR, BRISBANE Turn right at CORONATION DR [RAMP], BRISBANE Continue along BOOMERANG ST, BRISBANE Turn left at MILTON RD, BRISBANE Much nicer. Sadly, on this trip it leads me straight into a dentists chair. Perhaps getting lost would have been more pleasant.