Communication Aspects: How Landmarks Enrich the Communication Between Human and Machine - Landmarks: GIScience for Intelligent Services - page 173

In short, it is much harder for the computer to infer what kind of landmark
reference a human interaction partner will produce than for the human to under-
stand machine generated landmark references. This makes understanding landmark
references the more difficult challenge.

6.1.1 Requirements for Machine Spatial Communication

First, let us have a look at a sample dialog requesting directions to a specific location
between two people. We have already discussed the principles underlying such
dialogs in Sect. 3.4 of this topic.
Suppose you are in Melbourne, Australia, for the first time. You have been
wandering around the Central Business District (CBD) for a while, have ended up
in front of the exhibition centre just south of the Yarra river, and now you want
to go back to your hotel, which happens to be at the eastern end of Little Bourke
Street (one of the streets of the CBD, and the eastern end being part of Chinatown).
Luckily, there just happens to be one of the friendly guides provided by the City
of Melbourne for tourist support, hanging around here. So you decide to approach
them and ask for directions. The dialog may go something like this:

You: Excuse me?
Guide: Yes?
You: How do I get to Chinatown?
Guide: Chinatown? You mean Little Bourke Street?
You: Yes.
Guide: Ok. You cross the street here ( points east ) and walk along the river past
the casino. Then you cross another big street—Queens Bridge. Just behind that
street there is a footbridge crossing the river. Take this and continue along the
river on the other bank until you get to Flinders Street Station. Do you know
that?
You: Nod, because you have passed it earlier today and remember it from the
travel book.
Guide: Good, you can go either through the tunnel underneath the station or get
onto the bridge just next to the station and then turn left away from the river. This
will get you onto Swanston Street, which you will probably know as well. Just
walk up that street for a bit and Little Bourke Street will be on your right. You
can easily spot it by its Chinese gate at the entrance to the street.
You: Oh, that sounds easy. I just walk along the river here, cross it and then go
up Swanston Street. Thank you very much!
Guide: Yes, exactly. Have a nice day!

You may have experienced many similar dialogs in your life. As discussed
in Sect. 3.4 , we can observe several phases in this example dialog, namely a
initiation phase ('Excuse me?'), the route directions themselves ('You cross the
street here. . . '), a securing phase ('Oh, that sounds easy'), and a closure phase