Applying user-centred design for smartwatch-based pedestrian navigation system

ABSTRACT

The characteristics of a smartwatch impose several challenges regardig the design of a pedestrian navigation aid. This paper illustrates how landmark-based pedestrian navigation systems for smartwatches can be developed, considering the small screen sizes as well as the very limited interaction capacities of these wrist-worn devices. Particularly, by the use of a user-centred design approach, an initial user interface was developed, tested, and refined in two field experiments to create a final user interface. A combination of map view and direction view was proposed, where the map view provides an overview of the environment and route, while the direction view gives clear instructions (turning information) for decision points. The interface was further enhanced by the use of vibrations before decision points. In addition, landmarks were carefully considered and incorporated into both map view and direction view. The field experiments showed that these key features of the revised interface can effectively support pedestrian navigation via smartwatches.

KEYWORDS:

• Pedestrian navigation
• smartwatch
• landmark
• user-centred design
• field study

Author Contributions

This paper is based on the Master Thesis of Martin Perebner (MP), supervised by Haosheng Huang (HH). MP and HH conceptualized the work, and wrote the paper. Georg Gartner as the Head of the research group oversaw the whole process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. A related issue to this is: how many landmarks should be visualized to provide effective and efficient navigation guidance? Bauer, Müller, and Ludwig (2016) provided some insights on this aspect, and showed that depicting one landmark leads to faster self-localization, compared to using four landmarks.

2. In this street name-based prototype, we also did not differentiate non-subsequent and subsequent turns in the direction view. However, this difference is really minor, and only one participant took advantage of it in the second filed experiment.

3. The reason for this unclear pattern is unknown and requires further study. It might be due to the differences in terms of the general shape and complexity of the routes. Route 1 seems to contain longer route legs, and might be generally easier for people to follow regardless of the prototype used. Learning effect might be another potential reason. For Route 1, participants of both prototypes might be still in a learning phase to get familiar with the small screen interfaces, while for Route 2, participants of the landmark-based prototype might start to take benefits of the included landmarks.