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This paper describes the development of a crowdsourced indoor navigation system named SoleWay. Because the input of volunteers is crucial, special attention was paid to the usability of the system at different stages throughout its development. Besides a user-friendly system, this has resulted in a number of important insights that can facilitate the development of future systems: the importance social motivation of potential users, integration of a stepwise approach (with a gradual release and subsequent user evaluations), and adaptation to user requirements. These elements combined are also crucial to be able to obtain a critical crowd that can sustain a viable content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of mobile pedestrian wayfinding applications is gaining importance indoors. However, compared to outdoors, much less research has been conducted with respect to the most adequate ways to convey indoor wayfinding information to a user. An explorative study was conducted to compare two pedestrian indoor wayfinding applications, one text-based (Sole- Way) and one image-based (Eyedog), in terms of mental effort. To do this, eye tracking data and mental effort ratings were collected from 29 participants during two routes in an indoor environment. The results show that both textual instructions and photographs can enable a navigator to find his/her way while experiencing no or very little cognitive effort or difficulties. However, these instructions must be in line with a user's expectations of the route, which are based on his/her interpretation of the indoor environment at decision points. In this case, textual instructions offer the advantage that specific information can be explicitly and concisely shared with the user. Furthermore, the study drew attention to potential usability issues of the wayfinding aids (e.g. the incentive to swipe) and, as such, demonstrated the value of eye tracking and mental effort assessments in usability research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores map users' cognitive processes in learning, acquiring and remembering information presented via screen maps. In this context, we conducted a mixed-methods user experiment employing digital sketch maps and eye tracking. On the one hand, the performance of the participants was assessed based on the order with which the objects were drawn and the influence of visual variables (e.g. presence & location, size, shape, color). On the other hand, trial durations and eye tracking statistics such as average duration of fixations, and number of fixations per seconds were compared. Moreover, selected AoIs (Area of Interests) were explored to gain a deeper insight on visual behavior of map users. Depending on the normality of the data, we used either two-way ANOVA or Mann-Whitney U test to inspect the significance of the results. Based on the evaluation of the drawing order, we observed that experts and males drew roads first whereas; novices and females focused more on hydrographic object. According to the assessment of drawn elements, no significant differences emerged between neither experts and novices, nor females and males for the retrieval of spatial information presented on 2D maps with a simple design and content. The differences in trial durations between novices and experts were not statistically significant while both studying and drawing. Similarly, no significant difference occurred between female and male participants for either studying or drawing. Eye tracking metrics also supported these findings. For average duration of fixation, there was found no significant difference between experts and novices, as well as between females and males. Similarly, no significant differences were found for the mean number of fixation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experiments described in this article combine response time measurements and eye movement data to gain insight into the users' cognitive processes while working with dynamic and interactive maps. Experts and novices participated in a user study with a ‘between user’ design. Twenty screen maps were presented in a random order to each participant, on which he had to execute a visual search. The combined information of the button actions and eye tracker reveals that both user groups showed a similar pattern in the time intervals needed to locate the subsequent names. From this pattern, information about the users' cognitive load could be derived: use of working memory, learning effect and so on. Moreover, the response times also showed that experts were significantly faster in finding the names in the map image. This is further explained by the eye movement metrics: experts had significantly shorter fixations and more fixations per second meaning that they could interpret a larger part of the map in the same amount of time. As a consequence, they could locate objects in the map image more efficiently and thus faster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wayfinding in the indoor environment is challenging and people often get lost indoors. Navigation systems guide people in these environments, however, the existing systems are not well adapted to their users. The focus of our research is on the route planning aspect of navigation systems. By adapting the routes that people are guided along in the environment, our goal is to substantially improve the wayfinding experience for the users of those systems. Guiding people along routes that adhere better to their cognitive processes could ease the wayfinder in the indoor environment. To select the aspects that should be implemented in a routing algorithm that calculates such routes, a mixed method approach was applied. In this approach, the results of an exploratory focus group and a complementary online survey were combined. To validate these results, a real-life experiment is being developed at the time of writing. Our first study, the exploratory focus group, comprised academic researchers and experts with different background (i.e. Psychology, Geography and Architectural Design). The discussions were guided by a rotating wheel according to the GPS-method which was developed by the Flanders District of Creativity. These discussions provided a broad overview of the elements to be regarded when studying wayfinding. Moreover, results indicate that route complexity has to be considered at different levels: local level (i.e. at decision points) and global level (i.e. legibility of the building). Based on the results of the focus group, multiple situations with specific local characteristics likely inducing confusion and discomfort (e.g. specific intersections, different stair cases, different door types) were selected to elaborate more deeply in the complementary online survey. In this survey, videos of these situations were shown to the participants, as if they were navigating through the building. They were asked to rank their comfort and confusion level about the recorded situation on a 5-point Likert-scale. The results show that visibility, visual clutter and geometric simplicity are of substantial importance when evaluating comfort and confusion levels, and thus the complexity of indoor navigation situations. Since body-movement and the real-world perceptions, which have a substantial impact on information processing and spatial decision making [1], are excluded in these well-controlled lab environments of the previous studies, a real-life experiment will be executed to validate previous findings. The developed study design is in line with the experiment design of previous wayfinding studies [2], [3]. Eye tracking data of participants guided through different complex buildings along different paths (i.e. shortest path and fewest turn path) will be recorded. Performance measures (e.g. duration, stops, errors), eye tracking measures (e.g. fixation number, fixating duration) and annotations of the accompanying researcher, which are all measures indicating complexity and cognitive load, will be compared across the different paths and its decision points. This analysis will allow us to determine complex routes and to identify the environmental characteristics increasing the perceived complexity. Moreover, it will lead to an understanding how and in which occasions people make wayfinding errors. In a subsequent phase of our research project, these results will be incorporated in a cognitively-sounding route planning algorithm which could be a valuable improvement of indoor navigation support. Focus will be on the theoretical interpretation of the underlying spatial concepts. Adjusting the route planning support of indoor navigation systems to human wayfinding behavior could be a substantial contribution in this area. [1] S. Schwarzkopf and R. Von Stülpnagel, "What Lab Eye Tracking Tells us about Wayfinding A Comparison of Stationary and Mobile Eye Tracking in a Large Building Scenario," in Eye Tracking for Spatial Research, Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop (in conjunction with COSIT 2013), 2013, no. February, pp. 31-36. [2] C. Hölscher, T. Meilinger, G. Vrachliotis, M. Brösamle, and M. Knauff, "Finding the way inside: Linking architectural design analysis and cognitive processes," in Spatial Cognition IV. Reasoning, Action, Interaction, 2005, vol. 3343, pp. 1-12. [3] C. Hölscher, S. J. Büchner, T. Meilinger, and G. Strube, "Adaptivity of wayfinding strategies in a multi-building ensemble: The effects of spatial structure, task requirements, and metric information," J. Environ. Psychol., vol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]