Corbin Design and NAVTEQ have entered into a partnership aimed at giving our clients the opportunity to reach a potential audience of millions. While attending the IDA Annual Conference in Milwaukee, we met with NAVTEQ representatives to discuss the advantages of this partnership for our clients.

From our friends at the IDA show, we heard that many downtowns are tasked with building a dynamic and compelling community, often with diminished resources. These urban centers are hoping to bring in visitors; but in order to do that, they must first be found – which is the essence of the connection we’ve created.

We define wayfinding simply as “Direction for People In Motion.” NAVTEQ, through their extensive interactive mapping software, is providing exactly that to a global base of customers. Their customers, in turn, are able to pinpoint important destinations accurately while providing more in-depth information on specific points of interest.

Corbin Design/NAVTEQ map showing restaurants near our offices in Traverse City.

The NAVTEQ map is used over one hundred million times a day throughout the world. It is the predominant mapping software used on the Web, in the overwhelming majority of car navigation systems and other personal navigation devices. It powers the most well-known brand names such as Bing, Garmin, Nokia, BMW and Mapquest.

These tools are only as good as the information in them, of course.

Corbin’s task is to help our clients design that information, then assure that it appears correctly across media. By enabling a connection with NAVTEQ, we assure that the information we’ve designed appears consistently whether in the physical or virtual worlds. Technologies are changing rapidly, as are visitors’ expectations – so consistency in content is critical to reaching visitors at each point in their journey.

Here’s how it works: a Downtown Development Authority (DDA), Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB) or other other entity maintains a database of businesses in their area. That database content is updated via a wayfinding project with Corbin Design, and appears on a number of physical wayfinding tools, such as pedestrian kiosks. We send the same data set to NAVTEQ, who updates the base map information. All data is tested on a secure server, both by Corbin and our client. Once approved, the information is uploaded to the global mapping database, typically on a quarterly basis. This service is provided by NAVTEQ free of charge.

The benefits are clear: with our clients, we build consistency and control of data; NAVTEQ benefits by having more accurate, verified and useful information; and ultimately the end user benefits by being better able to find their way.

Ready to start? Contact us for more information!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 8:16 am and is filed under Government, Points of Interest, Wayfinding Concept, Where We Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.