Geofences Are Everywhere — And We’re Cool With It
by Nate McIntyre
I had my first hands-on experience with geofencing for home automation a few years ago. To see what I could do with the location-aware technology in my house, I set up a Wink hub to connect to my Nest thermostat and a number of Lutron light switches. I configured it all so if I crossed the geofence, the system would turn on my lights and set my thermostat. The technology automated the entire experience, from the moment I left work to the moment I arrived at my front door.
Geofencing is really just a perimeter around a location, and if you enter or exit that perimeter, the geofence signals an action. This if-this-then-that automation is the cornerstone of location-aware technology. This process has become even more sophisticated in the past few years, and it’s exciting to imagine where it will be in the next five. Just imagine: one day, everything could be automated based on your location.
I’ve been building location-enabled technology for the last five years. But as close as I am to the technology, I still find myself surprised by how ubiquitous geofencing specifically has become in daily life.
Location-aware technology is everywhere
I started noticing the widespread embrace of geofencing last spring, during a lacrosse championship I was officiating near Vancouver. My wife and I were with some friends driving around the city when our friend announced there was a Starbucks nearby. Not a coffee clairvoyant myself, I figured a mobile app notification had been triggered by the coffee giant.
This was great, as my wife happened to be interested in a coffee at the moment, but it also got me thinking how a better user experience might take other data into account before presenting the notification. What if apps instead took into account the time of day, whether the store was even open, or time data from previous coffee purchases to decide whether or not a notification should be sent?
This progressed my thinking. People don’t necessarily seem to know mobile apps are using location-aware technology, yet they’re delighted by notifications nonetheless — when the notifications are done right.
Geofencing, a “user solution,” not a “tech solution”
As mobile product owner, I am dedicated to making sure our location-aware technology is precisely what our customers need from our employee time tracking software. I initially started investigating geofencing based on our customer’s requests in late 2014. We wanted a solution that would help remind and enable employees to clock in and out based on their locations, clock employees in and out based on their locations, in an effort to make timesheets more accurate and save employers money on payroll.
Even in 2014, and still today, our solution was all about the end user. We want to delight whoever uses location-aware technology and make their lives easier by automating a process that’s otherwise cumbersome and subject to error. Our users are employees who are paid to do their jobs. Reducing friction and unnecessary time required to track their work is always top of mind when we design our features.
The biggest fundamental mistake any tech company can make when building a product is to think of it as “tech solution” and not a “user solution.” Taking into account what the experience will be for the end user will make all the difference. Just think of the last time you used a product and asked yourself, “Why the heck would anyone design something this way?”
People who work in design and user experience should remember that geofencing is complicated. Acting deliberately is vital.
When you’re looking at automating actions based on location, you need to think through all the corner cases and edge scenarios and decide how to handle those situations.
To get a better idea of how users feel about location-aware and geofencing technology, we conducted a survey of 400 US employees. Our research found 84 percent of people use special offers sent by app alerts. But does it really make sense for me to get a notification every time I pass a Starbucks? No.
Starbucks is everywhere, so that would be ridiculous. I think a more appropriate use of geofencing in your product is leveraging machine learning. You want to leverage behavioral metrics and determine when people buy your product or interact with your app in a certain way. If you know you don’t normally make purchases between noon and 8 p.m., notifications during that window can be more annoying than helpful.
The three Ts of geofencing
To make geofencing a more delightful experience for the end user, it’s helpful to implement “The Three Ts of Geofencing.” In other words: Implement notifications that are targeted, transparent, and to-the-point.
1. Targeted
People are a-OK with targeted notifications. If I’m receiving something that I want or need, there’s a better chance I’ll be happy with a location-triggered notification. Think about the different experiences and interactions an app could have with the end user, and be intentional about the way you present your notifications.
A geofence should provide value to the user. If it doesn’t, they’ll turn off location services and all your work becomes moot. Our survey found the biggest reasons people have for turning off notifications were they were too frequent, annoying, or not useful.
2. Transparent
Even though 77 percent of people allow apps to track their location — even when the app isn’t in use — they’re still sensitive about location tracking. In order to gain trust and create a sense of safety, it’s important to make sure people using the product always know what’s going on.
Don’t violate a user’s trust by using their location outside the expectations you have set, especially if your app tracks location in the background. Make sure the geofence is valuable for the user. As with everything, context is king.
3. To-the-point
Be relevant. Geofencing is not a silver bullet. It won’t provide a great experience or results on its own. It’s completely up to the developers or designers who build the product to leverage geofencing as an important component of location tracking and not overuse it.
The end user should not receive too many notifications, and the notifications they receive should always provide a relevant experience. What are some different experiences and interactions that geofencing allows for users other than just entering and leaving a set location?
The future of geofencing
Ten years ago, people thought it was ridiculous to have cameras on everything. It was a privacy issue, and people were afraid of the unknown. Now, cameras are everywhere. As a referee, I joke that we’re always being filmed on the field because, these days, everyone has a phone equipped with a camera. I think geofencing is on a similar path.
In the future, many experiences built around your location (where you are in relation to other things you own, for example) will be part of your day-to-day life. You will be able to monitor your home and your car in real time.
If you go on vacation to Scotland, for example, you’ll use your smartphone to turn on the lights in your home to simulate you being there. And your home will know you’re on vacation because it knows you booked travel. Your home, also run by a smartphone, will remember you’re in Scotland, so if someone tries to forcefully enter your home, it will ping you and an officer patrolling nearby.
Location experiences are the future of how we interact with our physical environment on a daily basis, and I can’t wait to see what interesting ways we find to leverage the technology.
Use your location tools wisely
Geofencing is more developed and reliable than I previously thought. But that doesn’t mean it’s the be-all-end-all. Think of it as just another tool in the toolbox for building robust and rich experiences that use the context of a user’s location to make things easier.
About the author:
Nate McIntyre is a product owner and mobile developer for TSheets time tracking and scheduling. He currently leads the location-aware and mobile teams, and he has been working with location-aware technology for the past five years.
