For driving with a sat-nav - I always have the direction I'm travelling at the top. It just makes sense to me as others have said. But being a lifelong map lover, I still need to get an overview first of the general situation - and for this I find a map orientated north essential. So when planning a route I will either use Google maps, a printed road atlas, or one of my good old Ordnance Survey maps to first get an overview.
I imagine for most of the public these days knowing where north lies is largely academic and of no interest to them. People often put an address into the sat-nav and will blindly follow it without having any real overview of the route or which direction they're heading in.
My brain always used to be wired to think of location in terms of it's North orientation. I've lived near the coast all my life, but 15 years ago we moved to be just a ten minute walk from the South coast (UK). Because I've now spent so much time looking out to sea - my brain tends to always think of places relative to the southerly view - and this does sometimes cause confusion to my internal navigation. Or is it just age.........
Jim
I'm like that. I need to get the overview. I'm always looking for parks and water locations to visit to shoot. So north orientation up is better. The "car" on the map is an arrow that shows direction in any case. And when you have to make a turn, there are voice and visual prompts. So it's hard to miss. If I'm just driving around, I'll look for alternate ways of going by hitting that icon and often take since the loinger wyss are more visually interesting. It gets you off highways.
I have to admit I've become very dependent on Google maps. By following it all the time, I don't remember how I got there for the next time. But even with places I know how to get there, I'll use it for the traffic reports and take alternate routes to stay away from traffic jams.
The biggest issue is when you leave a store in a big mall to get on the right exit out of the mall. Until you start moving, the system doesn;t know which way your car is pointing. So I get "lost" in the mall.
