Extreme navigation: introduction to the special issue

Abstract

Sophisticated mobile devices with high-quality location sensing technologies are ubiquitous in society. These devices can determine their location and orientation to an accuracy of a few metres. However, the interfaces to such devices are still firmly rooted in the techniques developed for car-based navigation. The user is presented with a map and a dot, or asked to enter a destination, and the device calculates the most efficient route to that location, perhaps with specific written or spoken directions. Whilst these turn-by-turn navigation systems work well for driving, where the user is likely to have a clear destination in mind, they are less use for the myriad of other navigation and wayfinding scenarios that humans undertake on foot. The papers presented in this special issue seek to move navigation beyond simple turn-by-turn directions by embracing the vagaries, vagueness and playfulness that humans often exhibit when navigating on foot. One common theme through the papers presented is the role of undirected or unguided navigation. Magnusson et al. consider how low-fidelity tactile feedback can be employed to indicate the direction of features and facilities in the environment as the user moves his or her device around. Here, the user may have a destination but does not care about the length or time taken to reach it. Specifically, they investigate how different target sizes and signal quality affect the performance of users trying to locate those targets. Their goal is to develop guidelines to allow ‘plug and play’ inclusion of low-fidelity feedback for navigation. Robinson et al. extend upon this work by developing ways to allow these simple directional cues to be adapted to help route users around obstacles when they come into contact with them. By increasing the angular width of feedback, Robinson et al. are able to support users in navigating to a location but allow the user to take a number of different routes, depending on their choices and preferences at the time, to reach that goal. In addition, Robinson et al. found that considering the density and volume of geo-located social media allowed users to be presented with more diverse options for navigation. Whilst both Magnusson et al. and Robinson et al. consider more practical navigation towards an end point, irrespective of the actual route taken to get there, VazquezAlvarez et al. consider more artistic aspects of navigation, augmenting the physical world with geo-located sound. Their auditory sound garden seeks to embrace the wandering behaviour of pedestrians by attracting and pulling them towards interesting sights and features in a public park. They found that the application of spatialised audio provided for greater immersion in the environment and understanding about park features that would otherwise be ignored by pedestrians. In contrast to these unstructured navigation scenarios, Sarjakoski et al. have developed techniques to allow for successful navigation in unstructured outdoor environments. They note that whilst landmark-based navigation (such as discussed by the three previous papers) is important, what constitutes a landmark is not clear. This is especially the case for outdoor hiking navigation, where landmarks are few and far between. Their work provides an important step on classifying the importance of Supported by EU FP7 Project No. 224675 ‘‘Haptimap’’.