世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey into driving and navigation systems, conducted by Micware, a company that not coincidentally makes a oddly-spelt navigation Android app Comcierpass…

Demographics

Between the 17th and 19th of July 2012 600 respondents between the ages of 20 and 59 were chosen by some means to complete a survey. The only further demographic information was that they all drove a car at least once per month.

I’lll be doing one of my three drives a year on Friday, when I go off to visit various graves for Obon. The car I rent from Toyota comes with a navigation system as standard, but the maps are often a year or so out of date, unfortunately. Indeed, one of the graves we’ll be visiting has had a new housing estate built nearby and opened about two years ago, but the maps are not yet updated and every time I almost miss the turn as there is no announcement!
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Recently japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by Marsh Inc into car (satellite) navigation systems.

Demographics

Between the 11th and 14th of March 2010 300 driving license-holding car owners completed a private internet-baed questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were female, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

In the west I have been getting the impression recently that dedicated car navigation devices are being pushed out by smartphones with often free navigation software. However, in Japan the market is quite well-established with large-screen feature-filled system the norm, so perhaps smartphones will have less of an impact here. That would be an interesting aspect to perform a survey on.

The report does note that compared to just seven months ago (September 2009), the share of owners has gone up by five percentage points.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey by goo Research into web site navigation issues. At the end of October they interviewed 1,093 members of their montior group with five or more years of internet experience by means of a private internet-based survey. 50.05% were male (interestingly, lower than the usual goo monitor ratio of closer to 60%), with 19.0% in their twenties, 44.2% in their thirties, 26.4% in their forties, and 10.4% in their fifties.

Regarding scrolling left and right, I recently got a new mouse with a scroll wheel that goes left and right as well as up and down. However, I can’t say I’ve actually ever remembered to use the left-right feature, and in fact it causes more trouble than it’s worth as a wheel-click in my Opera browser opens a link in a new window, but it’s too easy to accidentally push the wheel to the right at the same time, causing Opera not to recognise my click.
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