A turn instruction is the combination of text, images, and speech that Waze provides to the user in providing route guidance, ideally with minimal thought and without confusion.
This page covers the topic of turn instructions generally and includes guidance for modifying all editable aspects of a turn instruction inside the Turn Instruction interface. This does not include lane guidance, which has its own instructions.
By default, the use of road shields in turn guidance is limited to editors of rank 4 and higher.
Overview
Turn instructions tell and show a user where and when to turn, keep, exit, continue, or make a U-turn. Editors must take special care to ensure that turn instructions give Wazers clear and useful directions.
By default, a turn instruction will use the street name of the outbound segment for both display and spoken directions. If there is a 1) road shield associated with the primary street name on that outbound segment and 2) that street name is simple and contains the same number as the shield, then the turn instruction will display the shield in place of the street name.
Currently, this can look poor in the app as only the highway number is replaced by a shield, as in the image at right.
Reasonable people interpret this as "Autoroute Autoroute 15 Nord" since the shield implies "autoroute". As a result, using a customized turn instruction will look better right now.
You can customize turn instructions with road shields, destinations, exit numbers, and more. This enhances the Waze experience and we encourage its use.
General principles
Turn instructions should match signage as closely as possible within the limitations of the Waze interface, while remaining sensible.
Visually, the elements of the turn instruction should match the visual order of elements on the sign as closely as possible.
Custom turn instructions should be added any time signage for a particular turn includes more than just the primary street name (or associated shield) of the outbound segment. In particular, custom turn instructions should be added:
- for any numbered exit;
- anywhere a road shield is desired but won't be automatically displayed; and
- anywhere else that directional signage shows something other than the primary name (or road shield) of the outbound segment such as most exit ramps and onramps, wayfinders, intersections with specialized signage for a turn, and other occasions.
Here are examples of those use cases.
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An exit and wayfinder on Autoroute 40 Ouest in Montreal.
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Turn instructions on a major road in Montreal.
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Turn instructions and a wayfinder on a major road in Montreal. Adding a wayfinder in this case is not recommended, but the turns should be implemented with turn instructions that indicate the cardinal direction.
A good rule of thumb to use is that if there is a big green sign (BGS), then there should be a turn instruction. But that is not an absolute rule.
Here is an example where a turn instruction should not be used, since this is a named street and having Waze mention the highways would be confusing rather than clear.
How to do this
To access the Turn Instructions dialogue, hover your cursor over a turn arrow and click on "Add instructions".
Basic layout
As stated, the goal is to resemble the road signage as much as possible, but the functionality has limitations such as a lack of horizontal display space and a restriction to two lines of information (plus an exit sign).
The best practice is therefore to use the top "Visual instructions" line of the turn instructions for road shields (if there are any) and to put any text below that separated by forward slashes in a "Free text" box in the "Towards" field. The top of the interface displays what the turn instruction will look like in the app. You can see this in action here:
If there are no road shields for a turn instruction, place the first line of text in the "Visual instructions" line with a "Free text" box and put any subsequent text in a "Free text" box in the Towards field, as follows:
Canadian signs are fairly straightforward. If you encounter an unusual case, please contact a senior editor.
Exit signs
If the turn instruction is for an exit, choose the colour of exit polygon appropriate for the accompanying sign. Note that the colour of the polygon is not necessarily the same as the colour of the sign. In the examples from Quebec on this page, the sign is green but the exit polygon is yellow, and so these turn instructions in Quebec use a yellow polygon.
The exit polygon is always displayed in the top right corner of the turn instruction panel.
To use an exit polygon in a turn instruction, choose the correct colour and add the exit number in the box to your choice.
Do not use an exit polygon to indicate the voice prompt for a turn direction such as "keep right", "exit right", etc. The exit polygon is purely a visual effect.
Voice prompt
This is the same option that Waze editors can use in the dialogue box for turns in the WME. You may change it there or in the Turn instructions dialogue. It is an identical choice and will be duplicated from one to the other.
TTS
TTS stands for "text to speech".
If you make no changes here, Waze will speak the default turn instructions. There is rarely a reason to override the default instructions.
What to watch out for
"Towards" field
The "Towards" field is simply the name of the field in the Turn Instructions interface. It does not add any visual representation of the word "towards" and it does not pronounce the word "towards" in the app.
If you require the pronunciation of "towards" in your TTS, please use a guillemet, which is the French quotation mark: ». The symbol works for both French and English.
But there is usually no real reason to add that "towards". It increases the time to pronounce TTS when we should be trying to reduce that.
Road shields
Road shields not appearing in list
Often, you will need to use a road shield in a turn instruction but because that road shield is too far away in WME, the Turn Instruction interface will not present the shield you need as an option.
There are a few ways to solve this problem.
- Create a new road segment in WME near where you are adding your turn instruction. Give it a name and save. Once the road segment is saved, assign the road shield you require to that new segment. Hit the Apply button. You do not have to save the WME changes at this point. The road shield you have just created will now appear as an option in the list of road shields in the Turn Instructions interface. Once you have created the road shield, delete the new segment you created and save. The road shield will continue to be available nearby for future turn instructions even after the new road segment has been deleted.
- Put the road shield you need on a nearby existing street. Hit the Apply button and follow the rest of the instructions given in the previous method. Don't forget to delete this road shield when you are done.
- Zoom out in WME so that the road shield you require appears in your field of view. Reload the WME webpage. Zoom back in to you turn instruction and the road shield you need may now appear in the list. It also may continue to be absent.
Note, however, that editors in Canada cannot use road shields from other countries. We hope this changes in the future as many highways in Canada indicate American highways with American road shields.
Road shields and cities
Road shields are assigned to Waze cities, but the city you choose for your road shield in a turn instruction is completely irrelevant.
Road shields and cardinal directions
Once an editor selects a road shield, it will appear with the cardinal direction assigned to it when it was created. You may freely change or delete this cardinal direction. It is completely modifiable, which leads this discussion to...
Road shields and small-caps font
Rigorous testing has led us to conclude that using small caps not only better emulates what drivers see on any BGS, but also that it just looks so darned refined in the app (see image at right). As a result, we have established the use of small caps as a standard in Canada for turn instructions. We have also expanded this to include the directions on all road shields.
However, it is not trivial to get small caps to appear. The following characters can be copied and pasted into WME: ᴀʙᴄᴅᴇꜰɢʜɪᴊᴋʟᴍɴᴏᴘʀꜱᴛᴜᴠᴡʏᴢ (there are no glyphs for small-caps Q or X).
Or you can copy and paste these samples of the four cardinal directions:
| ɴᴏʀᴛʜ | ᴇᴀꜱᴛ | ꜱᴏᴜᴛʜ | ᴡᴇꜱᴛ |
| ɴᴏʀᴅ | ᴇꜱᴛ | ꜱᴜᴅ | ᴏᴜᴇꜱᴛ |
Once you have access to these copyable/pastable samples, you can set up your computer to automatically provide them as a keyboard shortcut.
- On macOS, you can set up automatic text substitutions in the Text tab of the Keyboard pane in System Preferences.
- On Windows, you can use AutoHotkey.
The WME Road Shield Helper script also has built-in shortcuts for the correct text.
Punctuation
Space is the biggest limitation in the app's turn instructions. While there is a valid argument to be made that the visual turn instructions should exactly imitate the BGS and its punctuation (while the TTS follows the established rules in place), that will cost the turn instructions some valuable characters. As a result, we feel it is best to not use punctuation despite its presence on a BGS or other road sign.
Other resources
You may want these quick links to the guidance for turn instructions in the US or to guidance for road shields in Canada.