Evaluation Topics: Wayfinding

article 1: Creating Impactful Spatial Experiences

Wayfinding is the cognitive component of moving around in an environment. It is a decision making process which needs clarity and metaphors can be useful. Wayfinding needs high level thinking, planning and decision-making related to user movement. It involves:

spatial understanding (see chapters about spatial dimensions).
planning tasks, such as determining the current location within the environment, determining a path from the current location to a goal location and building a mental map of the environment.

Wayfinding Cues

Environment-Centered

Environment legibility: think of paths (linear), edges (enclosing), districts (quickly identifiable), nodes (gathering points), landmarks (static objects).
Landmarks: for directional cues and local for decision-making by providing information.
Maps: most common in daily life, but very complex to design for in virtual environments. Needn't necessarily be a spatial representation, but can also categorise and place hierarchical structure at its core. Environmental clutter vs Neat & Empty
Compasses: provide directional cues, great for implementation in maps.
Signs
Trails: helps users to retrace their steps.
Reference Objects:well-known objects like chairs and human figures to determine size in virtual reality.

User-Controller-Centered

There are several strategies that designers and developers can handle to support the challenges that the human perceptual system and VR-hardware will keep on facing.

Field of View (FOV): larger FOV (> 40-80 degrees) reduce head movement. Small FOV's lead to cyber sickness.
Motion Cues: - the peripheral vision provides strong motion cues (direction, velocity, orientation during movement), - additional vestibular cues (inertia & balance, which usually are related to embodied self-motion cues) are necessary as well.
Multi-sensory Output: - Tactile maps (a map which contours are raised so they can be sensed by touch as well as sight.) Tactile cues can aid in the formation and usage of spatial memory. - Audio use can be used as well.

PreviousEvaluation Topics: Navigation NextEvaluation Topics: Human-System Control

Last updated 5 years ago

Wayfinding Cues

Environment-Centered

Environment legibility: think of paths (linear), edges (enclosing), districts (quickly identifiable), nodes (gathering points), landmarks (static objects).

Landmarks: for directional cues and local for decision-making by providing information.

Maps: most common in daily life, but very complex to design for in virtual environments. Needn't necessarily be a spatial representation, but can also categorise and place hierarchical structure at its core. Environmental clutter vs Neat & Empty

Compasses: provide directional cues, great for implementation in maps.

Signs

Trails: helps users to retrace their steps.

Reference Objects:well-known objects like chairs and human figures to determine size in virtual reality.

User-Controller-Centered

There are several strategies that designers and developers can handle to support the challenges that the human perceptual system and VR-hardware will keep on facing.

Field of View (FOV): larger FOV (> 40-80 degrees) reduce head movement. Small FOV's lead to cyber sickness.

Motion Cues: - the peripheral vision provides strong motion cues (direction, velocity, orientation during movement), - additional vestibular cues (inertia & balance, which usually are related to embodied self-motion cues) are necessary as well.

Multi-sensory Output: - Tactile maps (a map which contours are raised so they can be sensed by touch as well as sight.) Tactile cues can aid in the formation and usage of spatial memory. - Audio use can be used as well.