Abstract
Abstract Background Wayfinding is an exceedingly complicated cognitive process, especially in complex environments such as hospitals, shopping centers and airports. Inhabitants of such large environments can become lost very easily if they are unfamiliar with the environment. Although they may eventually be able to discover the route to a specific destination, interacting with conventional wayfinding aids, such as consulting a map, understanding signs, and asking people for directions, can be very time-consuming. Methods The research presented in this paper developed a customized instrument (questionnaire) with factors identified as influencing the cognitive process of wayfinding, and conducted an explorative study to investigate user experience and requirements of wayfinding in complex environments; in this paper, a hospital was chosen as the context. Results The results demonstrate that current wayfinding aids are insufficient to support a person's natural navigational behaviors in the environment. Augmented Reality (AR), which is an innovative concept of enabling digital information to be superimposed onto a real view in real time and context, has great potential to supplement current wayfinding aids. Therefore, we also conceived, developed and implemented an AR-based wayfinding system based on the user requirements identified by the aforementioned instrument. Conclusion The AR-based wayfinding system was partially validated through case studies, which concluded that AR significantly reduced the time and cognition workload of human wayfinding behaviors.
Highlights
Wayfinding is an exceedingly complicated cognitive process, especially in complex environments such as hospitals, shopping centers and airports
Prototyping an Augmented Reality (AR)-based wayfinding testbed Based on Song's (Song 2006) work with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to identify the location of construction materials, this research proposes an AR-based wayfinding system that integrates AR and RFID technology in order to significantly assist the facility management task in on-site work
The proposed AR-based wayfinding testbed retrieves and determines location information based on the Building Information Modeling (BIM) model
Summary
Wayfinding is an exceedingly complicated cognitive process, especially in complex environments such as hospitals, shopping centers and airports. Inhabitants of such large environments can become lost very if they are unfamiliar with the environment. They may eventually be able to discover the route to a specific destination, interacting with conventional wayfinding aids, such as consulting a map, understanding signs, and asking people for directions, can be very time-consuming. The aim of this research is to study the user experience and requirements of wayfinding in complex environments through a well-devised questionnaire, the results of which were used to inform the development and implementation of an innovative Augmented Reality (AR)-based wayfinding system. Case studies were presented to explore the benefits of AR in wayfinding
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