When we’re on the Eastside, we like to have lunch at Acropolis Pizza & Pasta. It’s the only nearby restaurant with “Acropolis” in its name. It may be the only nearby business of any kind with “Acropolis” in its name.
We eat there fairly often when we’re on the Eastside. It’s reliable.
In the past, we’ve asked Siri for directions if we’re starting from an odd (to us) location. Once we’re on a familiar road, like I-405 or NE 85th Street, we’re good.
We were in south Bellevue this morning and wanted to go there for lunch. I asked Siri for directions. It then asked me which Acropolis I meant: The one in Athens, Greece, or the one 4.8 miles away that we’ve visited multiple times before.
It’s good to know that the Acropolis 6,162 miles away is $$$ in cost. The one that’s 4.8 miles away is only $$, so we could save money by going there instead. And the Acropolis in Greece is closed now, which sucks. The one 4.8 miles away is opening soon. (It opens at 11am.)
I dismissed the prompt after taking this screenshot and either tapped the screen wrong or it took the dismissal as meaning, “go ahead.” Because it started to calculate the directions to the one that’s 6,162 miles away. Very funny.
As is my wont, I thought about the software engineering behind this.
- Your customer asks for the directions to <xxxxxx>.
- You find one less than five miles away and one over 6,100 miles away.
- Why did you include the one over 6,100 miles away in the candidate list at all?
- If I had said, “Acropolis, Greece,” then it would be reasonable to conclude I meant the one on the other side of the planet. But I didn’t. I asked for only, “Acropolis,” which is a local restaurant I’ve recently visited.
- You know I’m in my car. I recently drove to where I am. This isn’t rocket science.
- You didn’t include the names of the (I’m guessing) numerous discos, restaurants, or museums throughout the world containing “Acropolis” in their name. I get that “the” Acropolis is on a list of special destinations. But surely distance is a hint. The most you should do is bring up a “Did you mean…?” small list below the primary target of the local restaurant.
It’s fun to whinge about Siri and bugs in the directions we get from online mapping. We all do it. And there was no bad consequence from this — we laughed about it and asked for directions again.
But this is terrible engineering that shouldn’t have made it out the door.
Seek Nuance 