Mobile apps can interpret real-time conditions and help decode our surrounding environments.

Personal journeys are not always measured solely by distance. More often than not, they are a sequence of connected events strung together over time. Best-in-class experience design methods will link human, physical, and digital elements in ways that reduce or eliminate friction.

Since our phones are always at our side, they have become the default mode for interacting with our environments. Context-aware mobile apps can access and inform us about real-time conditions to avoid disruptive journey gaps.

Below are a few examples of single-purpose apps that help create a sense of order and improve real-time feedback loops.

Sequencing

While we sometimes wish to be in two places at once, the reality is that we’re linear human beings, living one step at a time. AI platforms claim to help us keep our lives in order, but they don’t always scrape reliable information, even for basic time and place data.

The growing volume of paid subscription content (unavailable to large language models), paired with AI’s inability to crawl apps or social networks, creates a deficit in the quantity and quality of information available to help us when using their technologies.

Apps like the ones below are helpful for their specific purposes, but juggling too many can add cognitive load when our planning becomes more layered and complex.

Timeshifter (Timeline)
This travel app helps reduce jet lag by making wake, sleep, light, and caffeine recos before, during, and after your flight.

United Airlines (Full disclosure)
United’s in-app terminal guide leads you from curb to gate with detailed “take me there” mapping if needed.

Tripcase (Trip chaining)
Forwarding your reservation emails to the Tripcase app will create a linear, event-by-event, scrollable timeline.

Responsiveness

We all know what can happen to even the best-laid plans. They can derail, either due to outside forces or simply because we change our minds. Serendipity and spontaneity are hallmarks of memorable journeys, and we should have technology that conforms to us, not the other way around.

Relationships with our tech platforms should recognize preferences, suggest alternatives, and respond to real-time feedback. This type of back-and-forth rapport would amount to a genuine AI assistant. We’ve been promised conversational assistants for a long time, and despite a lot of new wearable tech, they haven’t arrived as promised.

The examples below are far from complex interactions but illustrate responsive situations that momentarily put us in control.

Uber (Control)
Declaring your travel preferences helps establish some measure of control typically left to the driver’s whim.

Target (Choice)
The pandemic forced many retailers to adopt new behaviors. Target’s app gets to the granular level for drive-up and delivery.

Copenhagen Metro (Feedback)
Riders can share real-time onboard conditions to help others, especially those who need assistance or accommodations.

Outlining time-based itineraries should be expected for any respectable Wayknowing journey platform. But our mobile devices tend to keep our heads down as we navigate city streets. Depending on the future of wearables like hands-free audio devices or spatial computing glasses, we might someday find that our phone screens won’t be needed to guide us at all.