Mobile Pedestrian Navigation Systems Research Articles

Landmark selection for route instructions: At which corner of an intersection is the preferred landmark located?

Cognitive studies showed that good landmarks–salient objects in the environment–make it easier for recipients of route instructions to find their way to the destination. Adding landmarks to route instructions also improves mobile navigation systems for pedestrians. But, which landmarks do people consider most helpful when giving route instructions? Four experiments explored this question. In the first experiment, the environment, including the route and landmarks, was presented on a map. The landmarks were located at the four corners of a right-angled intersection. Participants had to select those landmark-based route instructions they considered most helpful. In all other experiments, the environment was presented from an egocentric perspective, either in a video or as a sequence of pictures of intersections. Participants had to select those landmarks they would use in a route instruction. All landmarks had the same visual and semantic salience. The positions of the participants at the intersection were varied. Results show that participants consistently selected landmarks at the side of the road into which they had to turn. Moreover, the participants' position at the intersection affected whether they selected landmarks before or behind the decision point. These results have consequences for human spatial cognition research and for the automatic selection of landmarks in mobile pedestrian navigation systems.

Choose your own route – supporting pedestrian navigation without restricting the user to a predefined route

ABSTRACT State-of-the-art mobile pedestrian navigation systems often employ GPS or other positioning methods for continuous tracking of users, and thus provide them with in-situ turn-by-turn route guidance along a desired route. However, studies have shown that user experience and acquisition of spatial knowledge decrease due to the “blind” following of such turn-by-turn navigation systems. This paper proposes a novel interface concept for mobile pedestrian navigation systems that provide navigation guidance without restricting the users to a predefined route. Specifically, the proposed novel user interface was based on the concept of the Potential Route Area (PRA), which defines a dynamic area consisting of all potential routes not longer than a certain detour the user is willing to accept. Within that area, the user can freely choose his/her own route and alter it anytime, and can still arrive at the destination within the desired detour tolerance. As a proof of concept, the proposed PRA-based system was then tested against a conventional turn-by-turn navigation system, represented by Google Maps, in a real-world navigation experiment, which revealed that the acquisition of spatial knowledge and user experience were substantially improved when using the PRA-based system. This can be explained by the fact that the PRA-based system provides its users with more freedom in choosing their own route.

Towards interfaces of mobile pedestrian navigation systems adapted to the user’s orientation skills

It is an open question, whether differently developed orientation skills require alternate pedestrian navigation interface designs for optimal self-localization during wayfinding. To address this issue we conducted two user studies in order to analyze different presentations of mobile maps.Evaluations were conducted in an outdoor (N=112) and indoor (N=64) environment. We recorded the time it took participants to localize themselves with the help of salient objects. Significant results were found for both studies. Abstract interfaces support well-oriented users, whereas worse oriented ones profited from standard designs. Consequently, we make the case for user-adaptive pedestrian navigation interfaces.

Considering Affective Responses towards Environments for Enhancing Location Based Services

Abstract. A number of studies in the field of environmental psychology show that humans perceive and evaluate their surroundings affectively. Some places are experienced as unsafe, while some others as attractive and interesting. Experiences from daily life show that many of our daily behaviours and decision-making are often influenced by this kind of affective responses towards environments. Location based services (LBS) are often designed to assist and support people’s behaviours and decision-making in space. In order to provide services with high usefulness (usability and utility), LBS should consider these kinds of affective responses towards environments. This paper reports on the results of a research project, which studies how people’s affective responses towards environments can be modelled and acquired, as well as how LBS can benefit by considering these affective responses. As one of the most popular LBS applications, mobile pedestrian navigation systems are used as an example for illustration.

EVALUATING THREE INTERFACE TECHNOLOGIES IN ASSISTING PEDESTRIANS' SPATIAL KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION

Abstract. Recent years have seen raising interests in mobile pedestrian navigation systems. Different interface technologies can be used to communicate/convey route directions to pedestrians, such as mobile maps, voices, and augmented reality (AR). Many field experiments have been conducted to study the effectiveness of different interface technologies in guiding pedestrians to their destinations. In contrast to other field studies, this article aims at investigating the influence of different interface technologies on spatial knowledge acquisition (spatial learning). With sufficient spatial knowledge about an environment, people can still find their way when navigation systems fail (e.g. out of battery). The goal of this article is to empirically evaluate three GPS-based navigation prototypes (implementing mobile map-based, AR-based, and voice-based guidance respectively) in supporting spatial knowledge acquisition. The field test showed that in terms of spatial knowledge acquisition, the three interface technologies led to comparable poor results, which were also not significantly different from each other. This article concludes with some implications for designing mobile pedestrian navigation systems.

Collective intelligence-based route recommendation for assisting pedestrian wayfinding in the era of Web 2.0

Mobile pedestrian navigation systems are one of the most popular Location-Based Services. In the era of Web 2.0, current mobile navigation systems often suffer from the following problems: the lack of social navigation support (utilising other people's experiences) and the challenge of making user-generated content (UGC) useful. In this article, some collective intelligence-based route recommendation methods are designed to address these problems. The proposed methods can make use of UGC (reflecting other users’ navigation experiences), and provide users with the least complex and the length-complexity-optimised (LCO) routes. Some simulations using the street network of the first district of Vienna (Austria) are designed to evaluate the proposed methods. The results show that compared to the shortest route, the collective intelligence-based routes (i.e. the least complex and the LCO routes) have a significant improvement of the route quality (with lower complexity ratings), thereby more effectively supporting users’ navigation tasks (more chances of reaching the destination, fewer mistakes made and shorter distance travelled).

Spatial Knowledge Acquisition with Mobile Maps, Augmented Reality and Voice in the Context of GPS-based Pedestrian Navigation: Results from a Field Test

GPS-based pedestrian navigation systems have become increasingly popular. Different interface technologies can be used to communicate/convey route directions to pedestrians. This paper aims to empirically study the influence of different interface technologies on spatial knowledge acquisition in the context of GPS-based pedestrian navigation. A field experiment was implemented to address this concern. Firstly, the suitability of the evaluation methods in assessing spatial knowledge acquisition was analyzed empirically (focusing on the ability of differentiating “familiar” and “unfamiliar” participants). The suitable methods were then used to compare the influence of mobile maps, augmented reality, and voice on spatial learning. The field test showed that in terms of spatial knowledge acquisition, the three interface technologies led to comparable results, which were not significantly different from each other. The results bring some challenging issues for consideration when designing mobile pedestrian navigation systems.