Identifying what constitutes complexity perception of decision points during indoor route guidance

ABSTRACT

To be able to design indoor wayfinding systems that adhere better to the needs of the users, user perception on complexity needs to be examined and linked to user characteristics and decision point characteristics. To identify how these characteristics influence perception, an online survey is executed in which participants had to indicate how complex they found a decision point, while interpreting a route instruction. The results show that complexity ratings depend both on user characteristics and on the function of the decision point. Decision points to change levels, start or end a route and to take turns each received significantly different complexity ratings. Isovist and visibility graph analysis characteristics of these decision points show that the first two actions were perceived as more complex when they took place in a narrow hallway, while the third action was perceived as more complex in a convex space. The results of this study can be used in the design of an adaptive wayfinding system that adapts the route instructions to the perceived decision point complexity. This adaptation will adhere better to the needs of the users compared to an adaptation based on solely theoretical complexity.

KEYWORDS:

• Indoor navigation
• mobile wayfinding aid
• complexity perception
• isovist
• visibility graph analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data and codes that support the findings of this study are available in data.mendeley.com with the identifier DOI:10.17632/735yr4484r.1.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek [FWO17/ASP/242].

Notes on contributors

Laure De Cock

Laure De Cock started working at the Department of Geography in Octobre 2017. Her research focuses on adaptive indoor route guidance. In her PhD she combines space syntax, building complexity, user perception and route communication.

Kristien Ooms

Dr. Kristien Ooms is a voluntary member of the Geography Department at Ghent University. She is specialized in cartography and usability research.

Nico Van de Weghe

Nico Van de Weghe is professor in geomatics. He is specialized in geographical information science (focus on analysis and modelling of spatiotemporal information, going from mobility research to sports analytics), and he has a broad experience in setting up practical experiments in the area of geographical information technology (focus on tracking of moving objects and location based services).

Nina Vanhaeren

Nina Vanhaeren is working at the Department of Geography as a PhD student. Her research focuses on the development of cognitive indoor route planning algorithms. By guiding people along more intuitive paths, this project aims at improving indoor navigation systems.

Pieter Pauwels

Pieter Pauwels is professor at the architecture department o Ghent University. He specializes in the use of information technologies during the design and building process and more specifically in building information modelling, semantic web and linked data.

Philippe De Maeyer

Philippe De Maeyer is senior full professor in cartography and GIS; he is the chair of the Department of Geography.