Wayfinding Tasks Research Articles

Assessing the Feasibility and Efficacy of Virtual Reality Navigational Training for Older Adults.

This study evaluates the feasibility of virtual reality (VR) wayfinding training with aging adults and assesses the impact of the training on wayfinding performance. 49 participants were recruited using a convenience sample approach. Wayfinding tasks were conducted by 3 participant groups: active VR training, passive video training, and no training, assigned randomly. The training featured 5 tasks in a digital version of a real building. Post-training assessments used 10 tasks in this same building, half of the tasks familiar from the training and half new. The study was double-blinded, with each intervention lasting 10 min. The primary outcomes include the Distance Traveled and Duration for each wayfinding task, with a fixed 10-min limit. Participants in the VR group reported moderate usability and a high sense of Self Location in the environment with respect to the training intervention. No significant differences were found in performance for the first group of similar wayfinding tasks; however, in the subsequent set of new tasks the VR group significantly outperformed the Control group. This suggests a possible spatial learning effect across multiple exposures (VR training followed by similar task). No adverse effects were reported during or post intervention. This study provides preliminary evidence that VR training can help to improve wayfinding performance in older adults with no reported adverse effects.

Identifying older adults at risk for dementia based on smartphone data obtained during a wayfinding task in the real world.

Alzheimer's disease (AD), as the most common form of dementia and leading cause for disability and death in old age, represents a major burden to healthcare systems worldwide. For the development of disease-modifying interventions and treatments, the detection of cognitive changes at the earliest disease stages is crucial. Recent advancements in mobile consumer technologies provide new opportunities to collect multi-dimensional data in real-life settings to identify and monitor at-risk individuals. Based on evidence showing that deficits in spatial navigation are a common hallmark of dementia, we assessed whether a memory clinic sample of patients with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) who still scored normally on neuropsychological assessments show differences in smartphone-assisted wayfinding behavior compared with cognitively healthy older and younger adults. Guided by a mobile application, participants had to find locations along a short route on the medical campus of the Magdeburg university. We show that performance measures that were extracted from GPS and user input data distinguish between the groups. In particular, the number of orientation stops was predictive of the SCD status in older participants. Our data suggest that subtle cognitive changes in patients with SCD, whose risk to develop dementia in the future is elevated, can be inferred from smartphone data, collected during a brief wayfinding task in the real world.

How to Help Older Adults Navigate Through VR? Effects in Outdoor–Indoor Transition Environments

In more complex outdoor–indoor transition scenarios, people were more prone to getting lost due to difficulties in effectively integrating proprioceptive cues and external navigation cues. Previous research had mostly focused on spatial perception driven by head or limb movements, with less discussion on locomotion methods that involved significant visual discrepancies. The challenge in designing navigation systems lies in balancing the enhancement of wayfinding performance with the potential negative impact on spatial cognition. We believe that navigation legibility might be a key optimization approach. Additionally, the differences in performance between different age groups were also worth investigating. Therefore, this study aimed to explore how locomotion methods and navigation legibility affected wayfinding performance, navigation interaction, navigation regression, and spatial cognition in younger and older adults during outdoor–indoor transition scenarios. Twenty-four younger (aged 19–27) and 24 older adults (aged 60–83) underwent VR wayfinding tasks. Participants initially followed virtual phone navigation from outdoor starting points to indoor endpoints, then drew cognitive route maps. Five main findings emerged: Continuous teleportation positively affected navigation performance and global representation of routes. Improving navigation legibility boosted navigation interaction, navigation regression, and global representation of routes. Older adults engaged more in navigation interaction but less in navigation regression, exhibiting poorer performance and route representation. Location-specific differences were observed in locomotion, legibility, and age effects. Furthermore, most older adults and over half of younger adults displayed a deflection effect based on outdoor–indoor (OI) space in route representation. These findings indicated that continuous teleportation and enhanced navigation legibility could improve user experience and spatial cognition, highlighting the importance of considering user age and the characteristics of outdoor–indoor transition scenarios when optimizing navigation methods.

Designing complex network visualisations using the wayfinding map metaphor

Despite their widespread use, network visualisations can be rather challenging to design and use. This is due to the fact that such visualisations are generally used to represent highly complex underlying data sets. As such, the resulting charts often include a very large number of visual elements and many non-linear relations between them that must be displayed. More effective design-oriented approaches are therefore needed to better support designers in creating network visualisations for complex data sets that are more understandable and usable for their users. The use of visual metaphors seems to offer such an approach to designing visualisations of complex data. In this article, we propose the use of wayfinding map metaphor in network diagrams to support both the designers and users of this type of data visualisation. We also provide a mapping of the three common map wayfinding tasks – orientation, exploration, and navigation – to three categories of network diagram user interactions. To demonstrate the potential of our proposed approach, we provide an example case study using a prototype network diagram visualisation tool – Colocalisation Network Explorer – which we have developed to support the exploration of relationships between various diseases and the portion of the human genome involved in their onset.

A Comparative Study driven by Spatial Performance and VR toward Wayfinding in Architectural Space: Healthcare Buildings as a Case Study

Healthcare buildings can be complicated to navigate, causing patients to experience stress and lose time if not adequately planned. This study aims to identify the relationship between the spatial layout in healthcare buildings and wayfinding for users, by utilizing Behavioral Sequence Analysis (BSA) and Space Syntax through Immersive Virtual Reality (iVR). The methodology is based on behavioral and spatial data and was tested by using the experimental setups in VR environments. Space syntax analysis is applied to collect spatial data. Experiments were conducted by assigning wayfinding tasks in virtual hospitals with various plan configurations. Behavioral data obtained from BSA was associated with the spatial data driven by the space syntax analysis to gain a comprehensive understanding of the participants’ wayfinding behavior. The results indicate that the semi-centralized floor plan layout with high visibility levels performs better in wayfinding while the decentralized layout with low visibility values performs worse.

Wayfinding in pairs: comparing the planning and navigation performance of dyads and individuals in a real-world environment

Navigation is essential to life, and it is cognitively complex, drawing on abilities such as prospective and situated planning, spatial memory, location recognition, and real-time decision-making. In many cases, day-to-day navigation is embedded in a social context where cognition and behavior are shaped by others, but the great majority of existing research in spatial cognition has focused on individuals. The two studies we report here contribute to our understanding of social wayfinding, assessing the performance of paired and individual navigators on a real-world wayfinding task in which they were instructed to minimize time and distance traveled. In the first study, we recruited 30 pairs of friends (familiar dyads); in the second, we recruited 30 solo participants (individuals). We compare the two studies to the results of an earlier study of 30 pairs of strangers (unfamiliar dyads). We draw out differences in performance with respect to spatial, social, and cognitive considerations. Of the three conditions, solo participants were least successful in reaching the destination accurately on their initial attempt. Friends traveled more efficiently than either strangers or individuals. Working with a partner also appeared to lend confidence to wayfinders: dyads of either familiarity type were more persistent than individuals in the navigation task, even after encountering challenges or making incorrect attempts. Route selection was additionally impacted by route complexity and unfamiliarity with the study area. Navigators explicitly used ease of remembering as a planning criterion, and the resulting differences in route complexity likely influenced success during enacted navigation.

Augmented reality in team-based search and rescue: Exploring spatial perspectives for enhanced navigation and collaboration

Indoor search and rescue (SAR) missions frequently encounter challenges due to complex spatial layouts and conditions of high stress. Augmented Reality (AR) has emerged as a promising tool to aid SAR efforts by offering spatial information through exocentric and egocentric perspectives. Specifically, AR systems introduce an egocentric perspective, overlaying detailed spatial information onto physical environments, which holds promise for navigating the complexities of indoor SAR operations. However, the effectiveness of these AR perspectives in a team-based SAR context remains underexplored. This study introduces a multi-user AR platform that combines reality capture with synchronized real-time spatial data and real-time cognitive load monitoring module to support team-based SAR missions. A human subject experiment (N = 64) was conducted with combined variations of spatial complexity and collaboration strategies to explore the efficacy of egocentric and exocentric navigation cues in aiding multi-agent SAR tasks. In the experiment, participants were asked to search for two consecutive targets while collaborating either parallelly, or hierarchically within a given time limit. Results indicated that egocentric cues offered limited benefits in a multi-agent setup, whereas exocentric cues notably increased team performance. Hierarchically structured teams resulted in fewer errors and improved efficiency during wayfinding tasks. Cognitive analysis revealed the importance of optimizing collaborative strategies to manage the mental demands of SAR missions instead of focusing on optimizing individuals. These findings contribute to understanding AR interface design’s complex role in multi-agent SAR support, aiming to improve AR system designs for SAR scenarios.

The relationship between object-based spatial ability and virtual navigation performance

Spatial navigation is a multi-faceted behaviour drawing on many different aspects of cognition. Visuospatial abilities, such as mental rotation and visuospatial working memory, in particular, may be key factors. A range of tests have been developed to assess visuospatial processing and memory, but how such tests relate to navigation ability remains unclear. This understanding is important to advance tests of navigation for disease monitoring in various disorders (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease) where spatial impairment is an early symptom. Here, we report the use of an established mobile gaming app, Sea Hero Quest (SHQ), as a measure of navigation ability in a sample of young, predominantly female university students (N = 78; 20; female = 74.3%; mean age = 20.33 years). We used three separate tests of navigation embedded in SHQ: wayfinding, path integration and spatial memory in a radial arm maze. In the same participants, we also collected measures of mental rotation (Mental Rotation Test), visuospatial processing (Design Organization Test) and visuospatial working memory (Digital Corsi). We found few strong correlations across our measures. Being good at wayfinding in a virtual navigation test does not mean an individual will also be good at path integration, have a superior memory in a radial arm maze, or rate themself as having a strong sense of direction. However, we observed that participants who were good in the wayfinding task of SHQ tended to perform well on the three visuospatial tasks examined here, and to also use a landmark strategy in the radial maze task. These findings help clarify the associations between different abilities involved in spatial navigation.

Individuals learning to drive solo before age 18 have superior spatial navigation ability compared with those who learn later

ABSTRACT A challenge associated with driving vehicles can be navigating to destinations. While driving experience would seem beneficial for improving navigation skill, it remains unclear how driving experience relates to wayfinding ability. Using the mobile video game-based wayfinding task Sea Hero Quest, which is predictive of real-world navigation, we measured wayfinding ability in US-based participants (n = 694, mean age = 26.8 years). We also asked travel-related self-report questions, including those relating to driving experience. A multiple linear regression model found that those who started driving solo below aged 18 had significantly better wayfinding ability than those starting to drive solo aged 18 and above.

The role of strategic visibility in shaping wayfinding behavior in multilevel buildings

In this paper, we explore the mutual effect of prior background expectations and visibility afforded by the 3D configuration of the physical environment on wayfinding efficiency and strategy in multilevel buildings. We perform new analyses on data from 149 participants who performed six unaided and directed wayfinding tasks in virtual buildings with varying degrees of visibility. Our findings reveal that the interaction between visibility and prior background expectations significantly affects wayfinding efficiency and strategy during between-floor wayfinding tasks. We termed this interaction effect strategic visibility, which emphasizes the importance of the strategic allocation of visibility towards actionable building elements in promoting efficient wayfinding and shaping wayfinding strategy. Our study highlights the significance of strategic visibility in promoting inclusive and accessible built environments for neurodiversity. Finally, we provide an open-source dataset that can be used to develop and test new wayfinding theories and models to advance research in the emerging field of human-building interaction.

Spatial learning using Google Streetview in an online wayfinding task

The use of navigation applications changed the way people find their way in an unfamiliar environment. A combination of maps, images and textual route instructions shown (or with audio) on one screen guides the user to the destination but may sometimes be overwhelming. This article investigated the spatial knowledge participants acquired after being presented with different types of route instructions, human and computer-generated, in an online wayfinding task using Google Streetview (without the 2D map) of an unfamiliar environment. The results showed a significant difference in the wayfinding performance for deviations from computer-generated instructions, whilst there was no difference in the time spent and the scene recall. Sketch maps revealed both route-like and survey-like characteristics. But most sketch maps are characterised by high route-likeness. Furthermore, this study showed a significant effect of the environmental layout on the participant’s performance based on deviations incurred during wayfinding. The results of this study have implications for improving navigation system instructions and design as well as for learning with geospatial technologies.

Predicting the chance for being at‐risk of AD based on smartphone data obtained during an everyday wayfinding task in the real world

AbstractBackgroundPatients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) often show problems in spatial navigation. However, spatial navigation is rarely investigated in real world settings and in people at early disease stages. Capitalizing on recent advancements in digital technologies, we measured the performance of healthy younger (YA) and older adults (OA), as well as older adults with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) while they solved a smartphone‐based wayfinding task.MethodUsing the novel smartphone application “Explore”, we tracked GPS data and other behavioral indicators in 24 YAs, 25 OAs, and 23 SCDs, while they were asked to find points of interest on the medical campus in Magdeburg. In our analyses, we first quantified similarities between the GPS trajectories and identified wayfinding styles using k‐medoids clustering. Next, we extracted navigation profiles with aggregated performance measures as input features (e.g., wayfinding distance and number of help function calls) in a latent profile analysis. Mixed effect models were fitted to evaluate group differences for each performance measure separately. We then fed the performance measure that showed the largest groups differences into a multinomial logistic regression model to predict age and diagnostic group in unknown users via leave‐one‐out cross‐validation.ResultThe GPS data could be clustered into three wayfinding styles. However, the correspondence to our groups was rather low (Figure 1a). In contrast, navigation profiles obtained from the latent profile analysis showed a higher correspondence (Figure 1b). Particularly the number of brief stops during navigation differed between the groups, all p = .006 (Figure 2), and predicted age group, p = .015, and diagnostic group above chance, p = .004 (Figure 3). The leave‐one‐out cross‐validation confirmed the successful prediction of group membership in unknown participants, accuracy = 0.57 (chance level 0.33).ConclusionHere, we show how information about the cognitive health status of an individual can be inferred from smartphone‐data, obtained during a brief episode of a frequently performed everyday behavior. In particular, the number of short stops during wayfinding could be used to distinguish between YA, OA, and SCDs. Hence, real‐world navigation data, obtained from mobile devices, might help to identify individuals at increased risk for developing AD.

Predicting the chance for being at‐risk of AD based on smartphone data obtained during an everyday wayfinding task in the real world

AbstractBackgroundPatients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) often show problems in spatial navigation. However, spatial navigation is rarely investigated in real world settings and in people at early disease stages. Capitalizing on recent advancements in digital technologies, we measured the performance of healthy younger (YA) and older adults (OA), as well as older adults with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) while they solved a smartphone‐based wayfinding task.MethodUsing the novel smartphone application “Explore”, we tracked GPS data and other behavioral indicators in 24 YAs, 25 OAs, and 23 SCDs, while they were asked to find points of interest on the medical campus in Magdeburg. In our analyses, we first quantified similarities between the GPS trajectories and identified wayfinding styles using k‐medoids clustering. Next, we extracted navigation profiles with aggregated performance measures as input features (e.g., wayfinding distance and number of help function calls) in a latent profile analysis. Mixed effect models were fitted to evaluate group differences for each performance measure separately. We then fed the performance measure that showed the largest groups differences into a multinomial logistic regression model to predict age and diagnostic group in unknown users via leave‐one‐out cross‐validation.ResultThe GPS data could be clustered into three wayfinding styles. However, the correspondence to our groups was rather low (Figure 1a). In contrast, navigation profiles obtained from the latent profile analysis showed a higher correspondence (Figure 1b). Particularly the number of brief stops during navigation differed between the groups, all p ≤ .006 (Figure 2), and predicted age group, p = .015, and diagnostic group above chance, p = .004 (Figure 3). The leave‐one‐out cross‐validation confirmed the successful prediction of group membership in unknown participants, accuracy = 0.57 (chance level 0.33).ConclusionHere, we show how information about the cognitive health status of an individual can be inferred from smartphone‐data, obtained during a brief episode of a frequently performed everyday behavior. In particular, the number of short stops during wayfinding could be used to distinguish between YA, OA, and SCDs. Hence, real‐world navigation data, obtained from mobile devices, might help to identify individuals at increased risk for developing AD.

Measuring trust with the Wayfinding Task: Implementing a novel task in immersive virtual reality and desktop setups across remote and in-person test environments.

Trust is a key feature of social relationships. Common measures of trust, questionnaires and economic games, lack ecological validity. Hence, we sought to introduce an immersive, virtual reality (VR) measure for the behavioral assessment of trust across remote and in-person settings, building on the maze task of Hale et al. (2018). Our 'Wayfinding Task' consists of an interconnected urban environment for participants to navigate on the advice of two characters of differing trustworthiness. We present four studies implementing the Wayfinding Task in remote and in-person testing environments and comparing performance across head-mounted display (HMD)-based VR and desktop setups. In each study, the trustworthiness of two virtual characters was manipulated, through either a fact sheet providing trustworthiness information, or a behavior-based trustworthiness manipulation task termed the Door Game, based on Van der Biest et al., 2020. Participants then completed the Wayfinding Task. Overall, we found that participant behavior in the Wayfinding Task reflected the relative trustworthiness of the two characters; in particular, the trustworthy character was approached more often for advice, reflecting data from our Door Game. We found mostly null results for our novel outcome measure, interpersonal distance. Remote testing successfully achieved these effects. While HMD-based VR and desktop setups both showed these effects, there was a stronger effect of trustworthiness in the HMD VR version of the task. These results have implications for the measurement of trust in behavioral settings and the use of remote and VR-based testing in social experiments.

Improving indoor wayfinding with AR-enabled egocentric cues: A comparative study

Indoor wayfinding poses significant challenges, as navigating complex environments can be difficult and time-consuming. Augmented reality (AR) has emerged as a promising solution to address these challenges. However, understanding how to effectively leverage AR techniques for large-scale indoor wayfinding scenarios remains unclear. In particular, the implications of AR-enabled egocentric perspectives have not been thoroughly investigated. This study aims to explore the potential benefits of AR-based egocentric perspectives and their impact on indoor wayfinding performance. A human-subject experiment (N = 31) was conducted in a multi-story building, utilizing a self-developed AR system capable of providing both traditional exocentric and innovative egocentric perspectives. The results of the experiment confirmed the performance and cognitive benefits of the AR-enabled egocentric perspective. Participants using the egocentric perspective demonstrated improved wayfinding efficiency, reduced cognitive load, and enhanced spatial awareness. These findings suggest that the AR-based egocentric perspective offers a more intuitive and effective approach to indoor wayfinding, enabling users to better process spatial information and make informed decisions during wayfinding tasks. The findings are expected to provide empirical evidence on the efficacy of AR systems for wayfinding and inspire new user interface (UI) designs that would better leverage the advantages of AR techniques.

The effects of different navigational aids on wayfinding and spatial memory for older adults.

Navigation aids can help people conduct daily wayfinding activities. However, because of cognitive limitations that can emerge with age, it is not clear how different navigation aids impact wayfinding behaviors and spatial memory in older adults. In Experiment 1, 66 older adults and 65 younger adults participated. They were asked to make turn decisions when the navigation aid was a map, a map plus self-updating (Global Positioning System [GPS]), or a text. After the wayfinding task, they completed two spatial memory tasks recalling scenes and drawing the routes. Results showed that younger adults outperformed older adults on most outcome measures. The text and the GPS conditions benefited older adults' wayfinding behaviors more than the map condition, as indicated by route decision accuracies and reaction times. However, the map condition was associated with better route memory than the text condition. Experiment 2 aimed to replicate the results using more complex environments. Sixty-three older adults and 66 younger adults participated. The advantage of the text over the map conditions was again found in wayfinding behaviors for older adults. However, no difference was found between the map and the text conditions in route memory. No difference was found between the GPS and the map conditions in any outcome measures. Overall, our results showed the relative strengths and weaknesses of different navigation aids and the interactive effects between the type of navigation aid, age, outcome measure, and environmental complexity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Limiting the reliance on navigation assistance with navigation instructions containing emotionally salient narratives for confident wayfinding

We live in a world that is increasingly dependent on technology, including for orientation in both familiar and unfamiliar space, which contributes to a long-term erosion of innate spatial navigation skills. In this study, we examined whether modified navigation instructions can make pedestrians less reliant on navigation aids to solve wayfinding tasks. In contrast to standard instructions, the modified instructions make decision-relevant landmarks at intersections emotionally salient and connected through narrative, and thus more memorable. The results of our online VR study with seventy adults revealed that, after navigating an unfamiliar route using modified navigation instructions, people made significantly fewer references to the navigation aid without compromising the accuracy of navigation compared to standard instructions. Narrative-based navigation instructions improved memory for the order in which relevant features in the environment were encountered along the traversed route, but not landmark recognition memory or memory for landmark-direction associations. Our findings highlight the benefits of using human-centred technologies that – as opposed to current navigation systems – promote the encoding and memorability of spatial information during navigation, and have the potential to train human spatial navigation abilities in the long term as a countermeasure toward GPS cognitive deskilling of population.

The role of selective attention in emergency wayfinding: An eye tracking-integrated virtual reality experiment

Emergencies, such as fire and earthquake, highly jeopardize human safety in indoor environments. In emergencies, acute stress activated by the threat of hazards influences human wayfinding efficiency and safety. However, the underlying cognitive basis of the influence of acute stress on the wayfinding process remains unclear. To narrow this knowledge gap, we focused on the core cognitive process, namely selective attention during emergency wayfinding, and conducted a virtual reality (VR)-based wayfinding experiment with a within-subject design. Three stress level settings were designed to induce participants’ stress. For each trial, participants were required to finish the wayfinding task within five minutes, during which a VR version of the Eriksen flanker task (EFT) was set to evaluate selective attention with the eye tracking function embedded in the VR helmet. The result demonstrated the positive effect of stress on the information process speed in selective attention measured by response time and the wayfinding performance measured by net distance. In addition, we found that the response time in selective attention plays a mediation role in the relationship between stress in the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and wayfinding performance. This study provides researchers with a new pathway to investigate the cognitive mechanism in emergency wayfinding with VR and eye tracking technologies. The findings are expected to advance the understanding of the underlying cognitive mechanism in emergency wayfinding, which has significant implications for developing evacuation simulation considering cognitive processes, as well as for evacuation planning of complex indoor environments and crowd evacuation management during indoor emergencies.

Sex differences in spatial tasks: Considering environmental factors, navigation strategies, and age

Sex differences in navigation have been a topic of investigation for decades and has been subjected to various contradictory findings and debates. The aim of this work was to compare the spatial memory of men and women tested in various different types of spatial tasks, while controlling for navigation strategies and aging. It is generally thought that men outperform women in navigation and that women have higher scores on object location tasks. However, many studies fail to control for different factors that may bias one sex or the other. We aggregated the data of 465 participants (349 young adults, 127 older adults) who took part in various studies conducted in our laboratory, which include both published and original unpublished data, in order to investigate sex differences. In these studies, we used a number of different paradigms: virtual radial arm mazes, a virtual wayfinding task, an object location task, a virtual Morris Water Maze, and the invisible sensor task which is a real-life model of the Morris Water Maze. While our results may seem discordant at first glance, they demonstrate that several factors can impact the performance of men and women on spatial tasks, including spontaneous navigation strategies, environmental characteristics, and age. We replicated findings showing that women favor proximal landmarks compared to men who favor distal landmarks, women have better memory than men for the position of objects in the absence of reference frames, but they will have poorer scores when navigation requires specific angles, distances and polar coordinates. Moreover, we found that in aging, women who avoid the use of landmarks when navigating a radial maze show stronger reliance on these non-spatial strategies than men. On the other hand, women who rely on landmarks, do so to the same extent as men. Our findings highlight the need to carefully take into consideration these factors in order to produce a more harmonious understanding of sex differences in navigation. Finally, the interaction between spontaneous navigation strategies, sex, and age is discussed in terms of its implications for risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

Impact of Navigation Aid and Spatial Ability Skills on Wayfinding Performance and Workload in Indoor-Outdoor Campus Navigation: Challenges and Design

Wayfinding is important for everyone on a university campus to understand where they are and get to where they want to go to attend a meeting or a class. This study explores the dynamics of mobile navigation apps and the spatial ability skills of individuals on a wayfinding performance and perceived workload on a university campus wayfinding, including indoor-outdoor navigation, by focusing on three research objectives. (1) Compare the effectiveness of Google Maps (outdoor navigation app) and MazeMap (indoor-outdoor navigation app) on wayfinding performance and perceived workload in university campus wayfinding. (2) Investigate the impact of participants’ spatial ability skills on their wayfinding performance and perceived workload regardless of the used navigation app. (3) Highlight the challenges in indoor-outdoor university campus wayfinding using mobile navigation apps. To achieve this, a controlled experiment was conducted with 22 participants divided into a control (using Google Maps) and an experiment group (using MazeMap). Participants were required to complete a time-bound wayfinding task of navigating to meeting rooms in different buildings within the Gløshaugen campus of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. Participants were assessed on spatial ability tests, mental workload, and wayfinding performance using a questionnaire, observation notes and a short follow-up interview about the challenges they faced in the task. The findings reveal a negative correlation between overall spatial ability score (spatial reasoning, spatial orientation, and sense of direction) and perceived workload (NASA TLX score and Subjective Workload Rating) and a negative correlation between sense of direction score and total hesitation during wayfinding task. However, no significant difference was found between the Google Maps and the MazeMap group for wayfinding performance and perceived workload. The qualitative analysis resulted in five key challenge categories in university campus wayfinding, providing implications for designing navigation systems that better facilitate indoor-outdoor campus navigation.