Being daily immersed in technology tends to make one arrogant.
I think it's prudent for your mother (or anyone else) to actually use technology that is new to them before risking their lives on it. Fiddling with buttons while trying to use a device while driving is the ultimate in negligence.
With a mature programming culture, certainly an actual tutorial can be devised to "learn" to use the device on a PC which would be indistinguishable from actually driving and navigating. It can even include the infamous "recalculating," which, more often than not should be ignored. "Make a U-turn??"
Having come from a surveying/engineering background, I rarely have need for that type of help, but I can't put my brain in neutral and assume that the majority of non-technical users should understand it all as easily as I.
Just saying...
Oh yeah, I took her to the park down the road, waited for the sats to come up, then showed her how to get where she wanted to go BEFORE heading out. She was frustrated because she was not getting any sats in the living room. Thats why I laughed so hard. No concept of what was really going on.
Nice to chat with a fellow surveyor.
I really relied on my Garmin unit in Oahu, wholy geez! If you (at least me) tried to get from the airport to the northshore solo!? Good luck! I ended up going over the H3 and finally found a grocery store where I could dig it out. WOW was I way off!