Indoor Navigation Apps: Key Features

A growing number of companies are turning to indoor navigation apps as they seek to enhance user experiences within their buildings.

Indoor navigation and positioning systems refer to outdoor GPS navigation apps. They assist users in finding their preferred locations, but inside major commercial buildings where the GPS navigation system does not work. Its IPS-enabled services help locate spaces swiftly inside hospitals, airports, and other buildings. And, this app helps plot users’ current locations on a digital map and suggests them the shortest route to their destination.

If you too are planning to jump on this bandwagon, here is a list of some of the most important features such an app must have:

1.Positioning: Contrary to popular belief, the idea of navigation apps is not to exclusively help, well, navigate to their destination. Navigation apps can also be used for positioning, i.e. determining the precise location of the user. This principle and benefit, of course, extend to indoor navigation apps as well.

2.Mapping: Okay, it may seem redundant to talk about mapping a list of must-haves and/or important features for a navigation app, be it indoors or outdoors, but hear us out. The point of mapping in an indoor navigation system is to not simply help people get to wherever they want to go in a building from wherever they may be inside that building. The entire point of such an app is to enhance the convenience and mapping helps you do that by also offering users alternative routes to their destination, shortcuts, etc.

3.Administrative capabilities: If you think indoor navigation apps are all about helping people get from point A to point B inside large buildings, you may want to think again. A novel way in which indoor navigation apps can be leveraged for a business has to do with marketing: say, you want to launch a promotional campaign in the large building that you operate. You can publicize and promote the said campaign with the help of the combination of GPS and beacons.

4.Analytics: Yet another feature vital to the success of any indoor navigation app is analytics. Yes, you read that right. While it may not directly benefit the end user of such an app, the point is analytics can provide valuable insights to the company offering the app. What kind of insights you might ask? Say you operate a mall or a shopping complex, an indoor navigation app fortified with analytics can not only provide data about the number of visitors but also crunch these numbers to help you understand the peak hours for footfall, etc. Such information can then be leveraged to improve user experiences inside large buildings.

5.Voice command: We admit that this may seem like an advanced feature for an app serving a rather simple purpose. Voice commands-based navigation is indeed advanced but the key to your customers’ hearts is through seamless convenience and voice commands are one of the easiest ways to achieve that effect. Voice commands allow users to find their way to precise locations inside large buildings, such as malls. As you can imagine, the ability to precisely locate without needing to type in names and such significantly enhances users’ ease and convenience.

While some may not believe in the power of indoor navigation apps, the fact remains that such apps serve an important purpose. Large buildings can be incredibly confusing and challenging to navigate and given the technology-driven age in which we live and the fact that we have GPS technology at our disposal, indoor navigation apps are the simplest solution to an incredibly common problem. So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and get started on looking for a trusted indoor navigation app development company so you can make it easier for people to navigate through your buildings as well!