TY - JOUR
T1 - Evaluation of wayfinding aids in virtual environment
AU - Wu, Anna
AU - Zhang, Wei
AU - Zhang, Xiaolong
N1 - Funding Information:
The experiment was conducted while Anna Wu was a master’s student in Virtual Reality & Human Interface Technology Lab in Tsinghua University. This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under current grant 70771057 and previous grant 50205014.
PY - 2009/1
Y1 - 2009/1
N2 - It is difficult for a navigator to find directions to a given target in an unfamiliar environment, especially a virtual environment. The commonly used overview maps can show survey knowledge only on one particular scale but cannot provide spatial knowledge at other scales. In this study, three wayfinding aids (a view-in-view map, animation guide, and human system collaboration) were compared experimentally in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and users' satisfaction. Results show that although these three aids all can effectively help participants find targets quicker and easier, their usefulness is different, with the view-in-view map being the best and human system collaboration the worst. Their usefulness also appears to be different for people with different spatial abilities. The results indicate that the design of wayfinding tools in virtual environments should consider the type and the presentation style of spatial information based on wayfinding tasks and users' spatial ability.
AB - It is difficult for a navigator to find directions to a given target in an unfamiliar environment, especially a virtual environment. The commonly used overview maps can show survey knowledge only on one particular scale but cannot provide spatial knowledge at other scales. In this study, three wayfinding aids (a view-in-view map, animation guide, and human system collaboration) were compared experimentally in terms of effectiveness, efficiency, and users' satisfaction. Results show that although these three aids all can effectively help participants find targets quicker and easier, their usefulness is different, with the view-in-view map being the best and human system collaboration the worst. Their usefulness also appears to be different for people with different spatial abilities. The results indicate that the design of wayfinding tools in virtual environments should consider the type and the presentation style of spatial information based on wayfinding tasks and users' spatial ability.
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U2 - 10.1080/10447310802537582
DO - 10.1080/10447310802537582
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:60849110284
SN - 1044-7318
VL - 25
SP - 1
EP - 21
JO - International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction
JF - International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction
IS - 1
ER -