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The efficacy of campus wayfinding signage: a comparative study from Hong Kong and Pakistan
Abstract
Purpose
Complex environments have a paucity of visual wayfinding information creating a strenuous situation for the new visitors. University campuses situated in the central urban areas with multi-storey structures and complex spatial layouts have poor environmental legibility. International students and visitors with diverse cultural backgrounds feel disoriented during wayfinding in these environments. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the cultural and individual differences affecting wayfinding behaviour.
Design/methodology/approach
An online wayfinding survey has been conducted through a questionnaire from 170 university students and visitors from Hong Kong and Pakistan. A five-point bipolar Likert scale has been used to evaluate wayfinding problems and ascribed behaviour.
Findings
The results enunciated a substantial influence of culture on the decision-making process and wayfinding behaviour. Critical differences have been documented based on the country of origin and native language. Individual-related differences (age, gender, spatial familiarity, education, etc.) were computed, where age and spatial familiarity being noted as key factors impacting the respondents’ opinion. Future exploration has been discussed for the pivotal elements regarding wayfinding information signage using computer simulations.
Research limitations/implications
The investigation can be further moved towards the other complex environments with fused facilities for a better understanding of wayfinding behaviour.
Practical implications
The findings can be instrumental for improved access to user facilities and can reinforce the user’s trust and dependence on the institutional facility management.
Originality/value
In the wayfinding study, no cross-cultural (individualists vs collectivists) study has been conducted in a university campus to investigate the wayfinding difficulty and ascribed behaviour, especially when the environment is unfamiliar.
... The institutional domain [34] Interior design quality evaluation in public inpatient units • The way-showing devices' properties/Design (i.e., size, color, language, etc.) • Institutional attitude. [36] Hospital design guidelines and their potential effects on user satisfaction [37] Institutional wayfinding in complex environments and potential effects on users [38] Organizational outcomes resulting from controlling design variables ...
... Demographic factors [18] • Wayfinding-induced stress and its correlation with the age of wayfarers [19] • Working memory has an effect on wayfinding performance [41] • Effect of age and fear of confinement on wayfinding [42] • Gender effects on wayfinding performance [43] [44] [37] • Level of education effects on wayfinding performance • Native language effects on wayfinding performance Spatial knowledge [22] • Spatial learning association with wayfinding performance [23] • Cognitive workload effect on wayfinding [45] • Familiarity effects on wayfinding performance ...
... Empirical studies indicated that complex medical facilities with excessive institutional environments have triggered several undesirable outcomes for their users, with wayfinding being one of them [5,37]. Other research focused on identifying these adverse outcomes, such as the study conducted by Jiang and Verderber [9], which highlighted the potential resulting outcomes of these environments commonly described as challenging, among which causes of high levels of stress and anxiety, loss of perceived control, and insufficient accessibility to positive distractions were described as the lack of meaningful interaction with nature. ...
Wayfinding is considered to be one of the most demanding challenges to be performed by hospitals’ users. Wayfinding has been an interest among researchers from different fields, such as architecture, interior design, cognitive psychology, and facilities management, to name a few. Previous scholars have highlighted the need for a holistic framework taking into consideration both user and environmental factors. A narrative review of the literature was carried out to understand the full extent of the issue and address the ever-increasing demand for a holistic assessment framework. This article attempts to address the underlying gap by proposing a comprehensive framework that takes into account both facets of the issue through a narrative review of the literature to some of the most prominent research attempts to address the problem of wayfinding in complex healthcare settings. Furthermore, the proposed framework can assist both researchers and practicing professionals by providing a comprehensive understanding of the issue of complex wayfinding as well as of the variables to be investigated in the assessment process.
... However, mobile devices require a great dependence on the internet or any other position identification system, that is, GPS and location-based beacons. The GPS location identification system is quite efficient and effective in outdoor environments with simple layout settings (Iftikhar et al., 2020a;Mollerup, 2014). However, for the complex outdoor and indoor settings, GPS is not efficient enough to provide real-time location information. ...
... The wayfinding systems consisting of static and digital information need to be synthesised for mitigating the contemporary wayfinding issues (Jeffrey, 2017). The complex university environments require a robust design for the effective delivery of environmental information because of the inefficacy of the current wayfinding system (Iftikhar et al., 2020a). Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the current practices of users' behaviour and preferences regarding information syntheses. ...
... The wayfinding information can be obtained in many ways either through the environmental cues or through the designed wayfinding systems. The traditional or static wayfinding system cannot serve the purpose efficiently in complex environmental settings (Iftikhar et al., 2020a). In our investigation, it has been observed that the participants have opted for multiple sources of wayfinding information. ...
Purpose
The efficient delivery of environmental information to wayfinders in complex environments is a challenge for information designers. Wayfinding tasks can be quite strenuous and frustrating in the visual absence of dedicated wayfinding information. This study aims to explore the behaviour regarding the use of wayfinding information by navigators in complex environments.
Design/methodology/approach
An experiment has been conducted in which participants have performed wayfinding tasks in a spatially complex university campus. The participants were instructed to use the think-aloud protocol during the experiment. The behaviour has been recorded using the head-mounted video recorder (GoPro), mobile phone screen (audio\video) recorder and interview. Twelve university students have been selected based on the equal level of spatial ability using the Santa Barbara Sense of Direction scale. Each participant performed three wayfinding tasks to locate the unknown locations inside the campus using a mobile wayfinding application and other information sources.
Findings
The results of this study demonstrated significant behavioural preferences in acquiring wayfinding information. Most of the participants synthesised the static and mobile wayfinding information sources, while some preferred only the static ones. Gender differences have also been found for planning and route finding. This study recommends the syntheses of static and mobile wayfinding information for designing an efficient institutional wayfinding system.
Research limitations/implications
The sample size has been kept small because of the qualitative exploration of the wayfinding behaviour regarding the wayfinding information syntheses behaviour. The experiment findings can be further explored with larger data set and controlled behavioural metrics. This study can help understand the user requirements in facilities management for spatially complex institutional environments.
Practical implications
The current findings can be further used to develop a framework for wayfinding information designers to assist them in understanding the current practices and incorporate them for improving institutional wayfinding systems. The management of the offered facilities within an institution can be further improved to make the space more efficient by saving users’ time and efforts.
Originality/value
Information syntheses or symbiosis of environmental information with the beacon-based digital wayfinding system is a new concept. This study explores the potential of such information syntheses for enhancing the legibility of complex institutional environments.
... Wayfinding is an activity of finding the desired location and also the ability to recall the route [1][2][3] by utilizing spatial information and an individual's cognitive abilities [4,5]. The respective spatial information plays a vital role in orienting the navigator in the right direction. ...
... The second type of information in a wayfinding application is related to the spatial environment. This information includes the signage [51], landmarks, dedicated pathways [15], intersections, building information, building internals, facilities [4], emergency exits and transports etc. This information content is necessary to explore the whole environment and build up cognitive maps for independent navigation while experiencing the environment. ...
Wayfinding applications on mobile devices are gradually becoming efficient in delivering environmental information. These applications provide a variety of wayfinding information such as location, orientation, route planning, spatial layout and provided facilities. The information is presented in multiple layers which requires a thoughtful design to effectively deliver the information, especially in complex environments. The objective of the present study is to explore the user preferences for information content and design in wayfinding applications. A wayfinding experiment has been conducted in a complex university setting by using the wayfinding application with a multi-layered information design. Thirty-one participants performed four wayfinding tasks using the purpose-built wayfinding application. Data has been collected by mobile screen recording, pre-and post-experiment interviews. Significant behavioural patterns have been observed for accessing the information content and user preferences have also been explored for the information design. Accurate location pointer, written directions and five to six-layered information design have been preferred for mobile wayfinding information. Information for validation in the real environment has been a significant factor during wayfinding tasks. Significant gender differences have also been recorded. A synthesis of wayfinding information from digital and real-world sources has been suggested to improve the existing wayfinding systems in complex institutional environments.
... The wayfinding task can be aided by providing environmental information cues that are helpful in building up important knowledge for the required wayfinding task. Such knowledge is classified into two categories: knowledge in the head and knowledge in the world, and wayfinding aids are useful to acquire information for transforming the knowledge in the world into knowledge in the head [3]. Several theories (such as route-based strategies and landmark-based strategies) and mechanisms (such as images or dual coding) have been studied to understand how knowledge is learned, structured and stored [4]. ...
... Some specialized solutions are available for indoor navigation, but the services are only for limited buildings [7]. With the advent of technology, working environments such as organizations or universities are becoming complex and consist of multiple buildings [3]. Therefore, finding one's way around becomes an additional challenge on top of work and study and requires integration of indoor and outdoor navigation [10][11][12][13] to provide seamless navigation from the start point to the point of interest within a building, saving time and energy. ...
Wayfinding is important for everyone on a university campus to understand where they are and get to where they want to go to attend a meeting or a class. This study explores the dynamics of mobile navigation apps and the spatial ability skills of individuals on a wayfinding performance and perceived workload on a university campus wayfinding, including indoor-outdoor navigation, by focusing on three research objectives. (1) Compare the effectiveness of Google Maps (outdoor navigation app) and MazeMap (indoor-outdoor navigation app) on wayfinding performance and perceived workload in university campus wayfinding. (2) Investigate the impact of participants’ spatial ability skills on their wayfinding performance and perceived workload regardless of the used navigation app. (3) Highlight the challenges in indoor-outdoor university campus wayfinding using mobile navigation apps. To achieve this, a controlled experiment was conducted with 22 participants divided into a control (using Google Maps) and an experiment group (using MazeMap). Participants were required to complete a time-bound wayfinding task of navigating to meeting rooms in different buildings within the Gløshaugen campus of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. Participants were assessed on spatial ability tests, mental workload, and wayfinding performance using a questionnaire, observation notes and a short follow-up interview about the challenges they faced in the task. The findings reveal a negative correlation between overall spatial ability score (spatial reasoning, spatial orientation, and sense of direction) and perceived workload (NASA TLX score and Subjective Workload Rating) and a negative correlation between sense of direction score and total hesitation during wayfinding task. However, no significant difference was found between the Google Maps and the MazeMap group for wayfinding performance and perceived workload. The qualitative analysis resulted in five key challenge categories in university campus wayfinding, providing implications for designing navigation systems that better facilitate indoor-outdoor campus navigation.
... The efficient usage of these skills majorly depends on the user's behavior during the wayfinding task. Human behavior in wayfinding tasks has been explored in various aspects like the role of environmental aids (Iftikhar, Asghar, et al., 2020a;Rodrigues et al., 2018;Wiener et al., 2009), layout planning (Hidayetoglu et al., 2010;Natapov et al., 2015), cultural and individual differences (Carrillo et al., 2014;Foster & Afzalnia, 2005;Iftikhar, Asghar, et al., 2020b), environmental and spatial factors (Downs, 2001;Schneider & Taylor, 1999), and wayfinding information Kuliga et al., 2019;Rodrigues et al., 2018). The wayfinding tasks along with the ascribed user behavior are very influential in enhancing the wayfinding efficiency of public institutional environments. ...
... All the participants were informed via a participant induction poster requiring male Chinese participants with a specific limitation on age-group (18-35). Only male participants were invited to the experiment to avoid gender influences while performing wayfinding tasks as predicted from the previous literature as well (Coluccia & Louse, 2004;Iftikhar, Asghar, et al., 2020b, 2020aIftikhar & Luximon, 2022;Lawton & Kallai, 2002;Waller et al., 1998). Some of these studies also supported the cultural influences on human wayfinding behavior. ...
Objective:
This research aims to investigate the effectiveness of wayfinding information (destination reference images) in real-time complex environmental settings through the syntheses of mobile and static information sources. This investigation will help in improving the wayfinding information design for complex institutional environments which will enhance the environmental legibility.
Background:
Complex environments are challenging for wayfinding efficiency. Identification of the location and orientation are considered to be important for wayfinding efficiency. This study investigated the user behavior in synthesizing the wayfinding information for identifying the users' location and orientation in a complex environment.
Method:
Twenty-five university students have participated in the desktop-based virtual reality experiment. Five experimental conditions were developed for the assessment of wayfinding efficiency and users' preferred information sources.
Results:
Reference images of destinations with user-matched angles were found more effective than the building's facade images. Participants synthesized the mobile wayfinding information with real environmental information to identify their location and orientation. Real environment information (road intersections and shape of the road) and mobile information (reference images of building facades) were found influential in the identification of the user's location and orientation.
Conclusions:
The study suggested a need for thorough investigation regarding the users' wayfinding behavior with different types of environmental information. Future studies have been recommended to investigate other complex institutional environments with larger sample groups for enhancing environmental legibility and institutional efficiency.
... Yön bulmada bireysel faktörlerden eğitim seviyesine ilişkin, eğitim seviyesinin hedefin bulunmasında etkili olduğu (Dahmani, Ledoux, Boyer, ve Bohbot, 2012); düşük eğitime sahip kişilerin yön bulmada daha fazla zorlandığı (Erkan, 2018), işaretleri anlamada eğitim seviyesinin etkili olduğu (Hashim, Alkaabi ve Bharwani, 2014), yönlendirme işaretlerini algılama süresinin yüksek eğitim seviyesine sahip kişilerde daha kısa sürdüğü (Boonyachut, S., Sunyavivat ve Boonyachut, N., 2012), eğitim seviyesi yükseldikçe çevreye olan aşinalığın arttığı ve yön bulma araçlarının daha çok fark edildiği (Wang X vd., 2021) belirtilmektedir. Ancak yön bulmaya ilişkin yapılan çalışmalarda yön bulma ile eğitim durumu arasında anlamlı ilişkinin bulunmadığı (Iftikhar, Asghar ve Luximon, 2020), eğitim seviyesi ile navigasyon performansı ilişkinin bulunmadığı (Ledoux, Phillips, Labelle, Smith, Bohbot ve Boyer, 2013), eğitim seviyesi ve yön bulma ilişkisinin kurulmasının zor olduğu (Erkan, 2018) belirtilen çalışmalar mevcuttur. ...
... Way-showing devices are an essential part of any wayfinding system, as they represent an interface whereby the institution can communicate with the users of the environment [7,8]. There are primarily three types of way-showing items, namely: directional devices that indicate the direction to a certain space or function, orientational devices that help the users to estimate their relative location within the environment, and defining devices that define spaces or locations [9]. ...
Wayfinding is the process of navigating the environment by using the available environmental cues. The issue of wayfinding difficulty in large healthcare facilities has grabbed the attention of many researchers in terms of its potential taxing effects on both users and institutions alike. While the challenge of regulating the process of designing wayfinding systems is still an active field of investigation, there has been a paucity of research addressing the challenge of distributing way-showing items based on users’ performance within healthcare environments. This study proposes a wayfinding enhancement scheme whereby users’ wayfinding performance data forms the basis of the process of distributing way-showing items within an outpatient unit in Malaysia. Furthermore, two virtual reality experiments were carried out, the first representing the existing wayfinding system and the second representing the new distribution. A cross-comparison between the two sets of results was conducted to evaluate the effect resulting from altering the as-built wayfinding system. The results indicated an overall reduction of time consumed to reach the same destinations as well as lesser distances traveled within the environment resulting from the implementation of the new distribution. This study puts forward the concept of implementing virtual reality environments to address wayfinding systems’ design challenges in healthcare facilities rather than relying on designers’ intuition.
... Moreover, the questionnaire results concerning the effect of age are consistent with [14,40,46,47], in which the Pearson's correlation test results showed a significant correlation. Furthermore, the survey questionnaire results are consistent with [48,49], in which statistically significant correlations with respondents' LoE were observed. ...
The difficulty of finding one’s way in a complex structure has been a long-standing issue of many buildings with highly institutionalized functions. This has been especially observed in hospital buildings as an issue that can cause various adverse outcomes for both the institution and the user. Therefore, regular evaluation of the existing wayfinding system and its efficacy is needed. This study aimed to evaluate the wayfinding system efficacy in an outpatient unit of a Malaysian public hospital in order to provide information that could help guide future upgrade initiatives for existing healthcare facilities’ wayfinding systems. This study employed a user survey questionnaire to evaluate the wayfinding system currently in use and investigate users’ needs for a better wayfinding system. The statistical analysis of the gathered data indicated a higher than average level of dissatisfaction regarding the existing wayfinding system. The findings of the study suggest the need for an upgrade in the physical environment. Furthermore, the results of this study suggest the need to devise a set of guidelines to be employed when designing wayfinding systems in Malaysia’s public hospitals.
... Ⱥɧɨɬɚɰɿɹ ɜɢɫɜɿɬɥɟɧɨ ɚɤɬɭɚɥɶɧɿ ɬɟɧɞɟɧɰɿʀ ɡɚɫɬɨɫɭɜɚɧɧɹ ɡɚɫɨɛɿɜ ɝɪɚɮɿɱɧɨɝɨ ɞɢɡɚɣɧɭ ɭ ɮɨɪɦɭɜɚɧɧɿ ɝɚɪɦɨɧɿɣɧɨɝɨ ɬɚ ɟɮɟɤɬɢɜɧɨɝɨ ɜɿɡɭɚɥɶɧɨ-ɤɨɦɭɧɿɤɚɬɢɜɧɨɝɨ ɫɟɪɟɞɨɜɢɳɚ ɇɚ ɨɫɧɨɜɿ ɚɧɚɥɿɡɭ ɬɚ ɭɡɚɝɚɥɶɧɟɧɧɹ ɫɜɿɬɨɜɨʀ ɩɪɚɤɬɢɤɢ ɨɪɝɚɧɿɡɚɰɿʀ ɜɧɭɬɪɿɲɧɶɨɝɨ ɩɪɨɫɬɨɪɭ ɡɚɤɥɚɞɿɜ ɨɫɜɿɬɢ ɫɮɨɪɦɭɥɶɨɜɚɧɨ ɨɫɧɨɜɧɿ ɩɿɞɯɨɞɢ ɞɨ ɜɩɪɨɜɚɞɠɟɧɧɹ ɡɚɫɨɛɿɜ ɜɿɡɭɚɥɶɧɢɯ ɤɨɦɭɧɿɤɚɰɿɣ ɜ ɚɪɯɿɬɟɤɬɭɪɧɨɦɭ ɫɟɪɟɞɨɜɢɳɿ ȼɢɡɧɚɱɟɧɨ ɳɨ ɡɚɫɨɛɢ ɜɿɡɭɚɥɶɧɢɯ ɤɨɦɭɧɿɤɚɰɿɣ ɫɟɪɟɞɨɜɢɳɿ ɨɫɜɿɬɧɿɯ ɭɫɬɚɧɨɜ ɩɨɤɥɢɤɚɧɿ ɪɟɚɥɿɡɭɜɚɬɢ ɪɹɞ ɜɚɠɥɢɜɢɯ ɮɭɧɤɰɿɣ ɨɪɿɽɧɬɚɰɿɹ ɜ ɩɪɨɫɬɨɪɿ ɬɚ ɫɬɪɭɤɬɭɪɭɜɚɧɧɹ ɦɚɪɲɪɭɬɿɜ ɩɟɪɟɫɭɜɚɧɧɹ ɫɬɜɨɪɟɧɧɹ ɜɿɡɭɚɥɶɧɨɝɨ ɫɬɢɥɸ ɬɚ ɛɪɟɧɞɚɣɞɟɧɬɢɤɢ ɡɚɤɥɚɞɭ ɦɨɬɢɜɚɰɿɹ ɞɨ ɨɫɜɿɬɧɶɨʀ ɞɿɹɥɶɧɨɫɬɿ ɚɤɰɟɧɬɭɜɚɧɧɹ ɧɚ ɯɭɞɨɠɧɿɣ ɜɢɪɚɡɧɨɫɬɿ ɡɚɛɟɡɩɟɱɟɧɧɹ ɜɩɿɡɧɚɜɚɧɨɫɬɿ ɬɚ ɿɧɞɢɜɿɞɭɚɥɿɡɚɰɿɹ ɩɪɨɫɬɨɪɭ Ʉɥɸɱɨɜɿ ɫɥɨɜɚ ɜɿɡɭɚɥɶɧɿ ɤɨɦɭɧɿɤɚɰɿʀ ɝɪɚɮɿɱɧɢɣ ɞɢɡɚɣɧ ɜ ɚɪɯɿɬɟɤɬɭɪɿ ɿɧɧɨɜɚɰɿʀ ɚɪɯɿɬɟɤɬɭɪɚ ɨɫɜɿɬɧɿɯ ɡɚɤɥɚɞɿɜ ɿɧɬɟɪɚɤɬɢɜɧɢɣ ɞɢɡɚɣɧ ɉɨɫɬɚɧɨɜɤɚ ɩɪɨɛɥɟɦɢ ȼɿɡɭɚɥɶɧɿ ɤɨɦɭɧɿɤɚɰɿʀ ɭ ɪɿɡɧɢɯ ɩɪɨɹɜɚɯ ɫɶɨɝɨɞɧɿ ɩɪɨɧɢɡɭɸɬɶ ɫɮɟɪɭ ɚɪɯɿɬɟɤɬɭɪɢ ɞɢɡɚɣɧɭ ɿɧɬɟɪ ¶ɽɪɭ ɬɚ ɚɪɯɿɬɟɤɬɭɪɧɨɝɨ ɫɟɪɟɞɨɜɢɳɚ ɫɬɚɸɱɢ ɣɨɝɨ ɧɟɜɿɞ ¶ɽɦɧɢɦɢ ɤɨɦɩɨɧɟɧɬɚɦɢ ɬɚ ɮɨɪɦɭɸɱɢ ɧɨɜɿ ɩɪɨɹɜɢ ɩɪɨɟɤɬɧɨ-ɯɭɞɨɠɧɶɨɝɨ ɫɢɧɬɟɡɭ ɋɢɦɛɿɨɡ ɚɪɯɿɬɟɤɬɭɪɢ ɬɚ ɝɪɚɮɿɱɧɨɝɨ ɞɢɡɚɣɧɭ ɡɚɛɟɡɩɟɱɭɽ ɫɬɜɨɪɟɧɧɹ ɝɚɪɦɨɧɿɣɧɨɝɨ ɬɚ ɟɮɟɤɬɢɜɧɨɝɨ ɜɿɡɭɚɥɶɧɨ-ɤɨɦɭɧɿɤɚɬɢɜɧɨɝɨ ɫɟɪɟɞɨɜɢɳɚ ɳɨ ɨɫɨɛɥɢɜɨ ɽ ɚɤɬɭɚɥɶɧɢɦ ɞɥɹ ɚɪɯɿɬɟɤɬɭɪɧɨɝɨ ɩɪɨɫɬɨɪɭ ɨɫɜɿɬɧɿɯ ɭɫɬɚɧɨɜ ɋɜɿɬɨɜɚ ɩɪɚɤɬɢɤɚ ɨɪɝɚɧɿɡɚɰɿʀ ɜɧɭɬɪɿɲɧɶɨɝɨ ɩɪɨɫɬɨɪɭ ɧɚɜɱɚɥɶɧɢɯ ɡɚɤɥɚɞɿɜ ɞɟɦɨɧɫɬɪɭɽ ɜɪɚɠɚɸɱɿ ɬɚ ɫɦɿɥɢɜɿ ɞɢɡɚɣɧɟɪɫɶɤɿ ɪɿɲɟɧɧɹ ɡɚɫɬɨɫɭɜɚɧɧɹ ɜɿɡɭɚɥɶɧɢɯ ɤɨɦɭɧɿɤɚɰɿɣ ɜ ɚɪɯɿɬɟɤɬɭɪɿ ȼɚɠɥɢɜɨ ɜɢɹɜɢɬɢ ɬɚ ɩɪɨɚɧɚɥɿɡɭɜɚɬɢ ɫɜɿɬɨɜɢɣ ɞɨɫɜɿɞ ɬɚɤɢɯ ɪɿɲɟɧɶ ɞɥɹ ɦɨɠɥɢɜɨɫɬɿ ɜɩɪɨɜɚɞɠɟɧɧɹ ɞɚɧɢɯ ɬɟɧɞɟɧɰɿɣ ɭ ɜɿɬɱɢɡɧɹɧɿɣ ɩɪɚɤɬɢɰɿ Ⱥɧɚɥɿɡ ɨɫɬɚɧɧɿɯ ɞɨɫɥɿɞɠɟɧɶ ɬɚ ɩɭɛɥɿɤɚɰɿɣ ɇɚɭɤɨɜɿ ɩɨɲɭɤɢ ɭ ɫɮɟɪɿ ɡɚɫɬɨɫɭɜɚɧɧɹ ɝɪɚɮɿɱɧɨɝɨ ɞɢɡɚɣɧɭ ɬɚ ɡɚɫɨɛɿɜ ɜɿɡɭɚɥɶɧɢɯ ɤɨɦɭɧɿɤɚɰɿɣ ɜ ɚɪɯɿɬɟɤɬɭɪɧɨɦɭ ɫɟɪɟɞɨɜɢɳɿ ɝɪɨɦɚɞɫɶɤɢɯ ɛɭɞɿɜɟɥɶ ɡɞɿɣɫɧɸɜɚɥɢ ɩɟɪɟɜɚɠɧɨ ɡɚɤɨɪɞɨɧɧɿ ɜɱɟɧɿ Ɂɨɤɪɟɦɚ ɡɚɝɚɥɶɧɿ ɩɢɬɚɧɧɹ ɜɿɡɭɚɥɶɧɨɝɨ ɜɩɥɢɜɭ ɿɧɬɟɪ ¶ɽɪɭ ɧɚ ɩɫɢɯɨɥɨɝɿɸ ɫɩɪɢɣɧɹɬɬɹ ɬɚ ɨɪɿɽɧɬɚɰɿɸ ɜ ɩɪɨɫɬɨɪɿ ɜɢɫɜɿɬɥɟɧɨ ɜ ɩɪɚɰɹɯ Ɇɿɬɬɨɧɚ Ɇ > @ Ⱦɿɧɚ ɋ > @ ɉɢɬɚɧɧɹ ɡɚɫɬɨɫɭɜɚɧɧɹ ɝɪɚɮɿɱɧɨɝɨ ɞɢɡɚɣɧɭ ɡ ɦɟɬɨɸ ɩɨɥɟɝɲɟɧɧɹ ɨɪɿɽɧɬɚɰɿʀ ɜ ɩɪɨɫɬɨɪɿ ɬɚ ɫɬɪɭɤɬɭɪɭɜɚɧɧɹ ɦɚɪɲɪɭɬɿɜ ɩɟɪɟɫɭɜɚɧɧɹ ɜɢɫɜɿɬɥɸɜɚɥɢ Ʉɚɥɨɪɿ Ʉ > @ ɏɚɧɬɟɪ ɋ > @ ȱɮɬɿɤɚɪ Ƚ Ⱥɲɝɚɪ ɋ Ʌɸɤɫɿɦɨɧ ȱ [5]. ...
The current trends in the use of graphic design tools in the formation of the architectural environment are highlighted. The integration of the full range of visual information systems in the structure of educational institutions is of special importance, because of their purpose to remain modern and attractive to the young generation, understandable in orientation and perform their main function - motivation for learning and development. Means of visual communication in architecture are designed to implement a wide range of functions, which together are designed to ensure the implementation of a key idea - a person's belonging to the architectural space. The choice of technological means, style and color scheme of interior graphics depends on a number of criteria - the specifics of the space, its functional purpose, target audience, general style and architectural solution of the building and should take into account aspects of its emotional impact on people. Based on the analysis and generalization of the world practice of organization of the internal space of educational institutions, the main approaches to the introduction of visual communications in architecture and design are formulated. It is determined that the means of visual communication in the architectural environment of educational institutions are designed to implement a number of functions: spatial orientation and structuring routes, creating visual style of the institution, motivation for educational activities, artistic expression, individualization of space. A study of the interior design of educational institutions has revealed that the revolutionary progress in the means of visual communication from simple signs and pointers to interactive multimedia screens and media facades continues to gain momentum with the advent of virtual and augmented reality tools that make their adjustments and revolutionize design in architecture, endowing it with interactive properties.
... Some studies illustrate the potential impact of digitalization for Urban FM. The signage case from Iftikhar et al. (2020) examine the complexity in spatial layout which contributes to developing culturally based consistent textual and graphical information and intuitively directs navigators to their desired location. In Trondheim's study, digital solutions were created to ease the communication and involvement of residents . ...
Purpose
This paper aims to illustrate where facility management (FM) is having an impact on the urban environment and what other work needs to be done to easier facilitate achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs). This is important for practices as it highlights opportunities where the FM discipline can develop and to research to illustrate where the discipline is going. The societal benefit is that we see Urban FM as an intermediator between citizens, public and private practices providing the platform of how they can work together for mutual benefit.
Design/methodology/approach
The method used is a literature review, looking latest state-of-art in the mentioned field has been assessed and the developments along with potential future research focuses, have been identified. The current scope to expand FM role were also taken into consideration from a recent workshop at the EuroFM conferences 2019 and 2020, several presentations at the CIB World Congress Hong Kong 2019, CIRRE 2018 and 2019, and special Facilities’ issue, illustrating how FM works within Urban environments and the potential contribution the discipline makes on neighbourhoods, communities and broader city-scale.
Findings
The authors present how FM fits in with a Smart and Sustainable City context by positioning communities as core for meeting SDGs, but they often fall out of needs perspective for hard and soft services. Since 2018, the authors have intensely worked on this topic developing conference papers at both a European and international level. The topic of Urban FM is growing in importance based on out interactions at these conferences and interactions with FM network groups. In addition, the authors have been identifying gaps, with communities that are currently not being met by current urban practice perspectives but could be met through an Urban FM practice perspective. They have engaged an educational perspective of Urban FM by developing workshops, summer schools with students from around Europe and new courses. With a specific focus on this concept, it is important to branch out ideas and disseminate of what a more structured urban FM is.
Research limitations/implications
Smart and Sustainable Cities has been a focus for many years now from various perspectives such as urban planning and technology providing solutions and frameworks on how to manage increasing populations in cities. What these studies neglect is a service-oriented perspective supporting the livability requirements and social values of future and current communities living in cities which goes beyond operating and maintaining infrastructure of cities. This neglect which highlights the need to develop an understanding where FM expands its role in the urban environment.
Originality/value
The aim is to highlight solidify research that is happening in this area where FM links to the urban environment and the benefit it has in terms of sustainability. It illustrates to practice and teaching that the concept of FM is relevant within an urban environment, creates stronger connections within and between citizens and cities and illustrate how Urban FM is necessary in facilitating community facilities.
... Being exploratory, this study demonstrated a substantial amount of differences related to the cultural influences and individual diversities in the preference of university signage design. Multiple studies (Troncoso, 2014;Ahmed, 2015;Iftikhar et al., 2020a) explored the cultural influences on human wayfinding behaviour to facilitate institutional settings. For this study, the aim was to investigate the cultural influences on user preferences by comparing participants from Hong Kong and Pakistan. ...
Signage design has been considered critically important for wayfinding, being a functional medium of delivering environmental information. Complex institutional environments have several factors affecting the wayfinding, including but not limited to the design of information signage and its visual preference. Visual preferences of information design in wayfinding signage vary, depending on the cultural and individual differences. This study explores the variance in design and visual preferences of wayfinding signage and its influencing elements. Responses through online questionnaire have been accumulated by the participants from Hong Kong and Pakistan based on their design and visual preference of campus wayfinding signage. Questions were asked related to the user preferences for signage colour if in line with the institutional visual identity, mono or multi-colour coding of information and its visual volume. In total, 170 university students and visitors participated in the exploratory study from the respective countries. The results demonstrated that participants of Hong Kong preferred inline colours of signage, along with mono or less colour coding and detailed information. While the other group preferred attractive colours with multi-colour coding and less detailed wayfinding information with pictograms. Individual differences concerning age, literacy level and gender were also computed, however trivial differences have been recorded. This study suggests the need for detailed cross-cultural investigation concerning elements of signage design and visual preference to identify the drivers for culturally consistent university signage.
... In this issue, small studies illustrate the potential impact of digitalisation for urban FM. The case from Iftikhar et al. (2020) examines the complexity in spatial layout, which contributes to developing culturally based information and directs navigators to their desired location. In Trondheim, digital solutions ease communication and involvement of residents (Temeljotov Salaj et al., 2020). ...
Smart and sustainable cities are of focus for over many years now from various perspectives such as urban planning, technology solutions providers and frameworks on managing increasing populations of cities. While studies highlight the complexity of cities and their multiple dimensional aspects in light of sustainability, intermediary (actor or process) in the form of urban FM has the potential to synergise multiple dimensional aspects (Lindkvist et al., 2019a). Urban FM service-oriented perspective has a scope to address some of the complexities of cities through opportunities that promote liveability requirements and social values of communities beyond operating and maintaining infrastructure of cities. The expanding FM role is exemplified in workshops and presentations at EuroFM, CIB and CIRRE conferences held in 2019, illustrating how FM works within urban environments and the potential contribution the discipline makes to neighbourhoods, communities and city-scales. The aim of this issue is to solidify research happening in this area where FM links to the urban environment benefitting it in terms of sustainability and local communities. In 2006, Alexander and Brown (2006) identified three key areas for how urban FM can support and broaden FM from individual organisations and buildings to local economies and communities. Salaj et al. (2018) extend the potential of urban FM to become an active and valuable partner for facilitating liveable areas, focussing on health and well-being, which has emphasis on SDG 3 Good Health and 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities. The main idea of urban FM is to improve the quality of the physical environment, create employment opportunities and ensure inclusivity of communities in design and management of services in the urban environment.
A campus library is an educational environment that has a wide range of academic activities that are organized and arranged according to hierarchy and activity requirements. When activity in the campus library increases, so does the intensity of a movement that does not correspond to the availability of compelling and wayfinding signage within the library. In fact, on campus there must be international students who are not fluent in speaking and reading the local language. The purpose of the study is to investigate a wayfinding signage issue in interpreting the information through visual graphic for international student in campus library. In this issue, it will examine the importance of visual graphic design used in wayfinding signage for interpreting information and determined the require component which help the topic incorporate a greater user experience through visual qualities such as graphic, text, color and size. Therefore, the (TWO) 2 objectives of this research paper are 1) To identify the current graphic design of the wayfinding signage in the campus library and 2) To determine the graphic design in interpreting information in the wayfinding signage. It will use a qualitative method by John Creswell in collecting the data at several proposed case studies place.
A wide variety of disciplines engage in Smart Cities as the scope and breadth of it is broad. Within the built environment, there is much discussion on how planning and construction phases influence Smart Cities. There is little discussion on the role of Facilities Management (FM). However, there has been much work on the influence FM has on design phases to ensure functional and usable buildings. Neglecting to scale up the influence of FM from individual buildings to city scale may have long term consequences on sustainability of cities. Taking a mindset of including an FM perspective early in the development of a Smart City is considered here in terms of social aspects of required services. The work draws on ideas of Urban FM to operationalize local needs which also responds to the need to link to broader city sustainable strategies. The starting point is from the development of two districts in Trondheim, Norway. In a three-day workshop, students interpret the needs of the area based on their own knowledge-based perspective, guidance from tutors of Urban FM and through engagement with local users of the area. The work highlights the potential of including an FM perspective in the development of cities.
Assistive Technology (AT) product use occurs within a socio-cultural setting. The growth internationally in the AT product market suggests that designers need to be aware of the influences that diverse cultures may have on the societal perception of an AT product through its semantic attributes. The study aimed to evaluate the visual interaction with an AT product by young adults from Pakistan, a collectivist society, and the United Kingdom (UK), an individualist society. A paper-based questionnaire survey was carried out with 281 first-year undergraduate students from the UK and Pakistan to evaluate their perception towards the visual representation of a generic conventional wheelchair image. A semantics differential (SD) scale method was used involving a seven-point bipolar SD scale incorporating sixteen pairs of adjectives defining functional, meaning, and usability attributes of the product. The mean (M) and standard deviation (sd) values were obtained for each pair of adjectives and compared between both groups by employing appropriate parametric tests. The results show that having a diverse cultural background did not appear to have overtly influenced the meanings ascribed to the generic manual wheelchair, which was unexpected. The University ‘Internationalist’ environment may have influenced the results. Some minor but critical differences were found for some pairs of adjectives (bulky-compact, heavy-light), having p-value less than .05 (p < .05) that related to previous experience of wheelchairs and/or their use. Further studies are planned to investigate and validate outcomes with other student and non-student groups.
• Implications for Rehabilitation
• The semantic attributes of assistive technologies highlight a number of aspects that have implications for those involved in Assistive Technology (AT) product development, manufacturing and marketing.
• • For online sales, the AT products rely on the web page image to communicate the purpose and attributes of the product. There are limited explorations related to the semantic/communicative attributes of AT product presented in images, as perceived by individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds.
• • The knowledge towards semantic meaning ascribed to the AT product is important to investigate to provide a perspective that goes beyond practical functions of the AT product towards the communicative function.
• • Information of comprehending semantics and significance of the AT product from a social (non-users) viewpoint may benefits manufacturers in the development of AT products that best meet the societal needs, preferences and expectations.
• • A model of best practice, with a focus on semantic manipulation will offer Industrial Designers (ID) internationally with the suitable process and tools to reframe perceptions of disability and enhance acceptance of AT products not only for users, but also for the society around them.
This study intended to examine visual perception (VP) of pictorial signage of public toilets including perceptual differences among the subjects in the study. The importance of the study is that in making meaning process of toilet signage people can misinterpret the signage, in particular, if the figures depicted on the signage are not in common basic forms such as the male figure illustrated by a man wearing a pair of trousers and the female figure shown by a woman wearing a dress. People’s confusion to interpret male and female toilet signs has also been noted in previous studies and explained that it might cause hesitation to determine male or female toilet cubicle. In the study in this paper, the pictorial signage examined were some examples of toilet signage depicted as stylised forms of men and women. The signage and a visual analogue scale (VAS), which were used to test the four parameters of the study, were presented to 36 undergraduate university students, who were the subjects of the study. The parameters of the study are the level of difficulty of identifying the toilet signage, the level of difficulty of differentiating toilet cubicles based on gender difference, the level of the probability of error to enter the toilet cubicle regarding gender difference, and the level of embarrassment if entering the inappropriate toilet cubicle. The study employed theories of VP and visual social semiotics (VSS) as the integration of them can help us to explain viewers’ perceptual processes of the signage, including their visual perceptual differences, and to reveal meanings of the signage. This study showed that the application of VAS is beneficial to collect the subjective judgement of the subjects about the signage with regard to the four parameters. In addition, the integrated approach comprising the theories of VP and VSS is useful to explain the subjects’ understanding of the public toilet signage and potential meanings of the signage.
I will first review cross-cultural research in the area of culture and cognition, with particular focus on the development of spatial concepts. I propose that the formulation best covering all empirical data is in terms of «cognitive style», i.e., spatial cognitive processes are universally available to all humans, but there are preferences for some spatial frames of reference over others. These cultural differences are under the influence of a number of eco-cultural variables. The second part will illustrate this general conclusion by research on the development of the «geocentric» frame of spatial reference, initially studied by Levinson (Space in language and cognition: explorations in cognitive diversity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003). This is a cognitive style in which individuals choose to describe and represent small-scale tabletop space in terms of large-scale geographic dimensions. In Indonesia, India, Nepal and Switzerland, we explore the development with age of geocentric language as well as geocentric cognition, and the relationships between the two, as well as the environmental and socio-cultural variables that favor the use of this frame (Dasen and Mishra, Development of geocentric spatial language and cognition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010).
The central aim of this thesis was to demonstrate how changes in travel type (i.e. active and passive exploration of the built environment) influence the way-finding process corresponding to visual memory, cognitive maps, and visual cues. Previous research shows that travel type influences cognitive mapping processes. However, little is known about the effect of travel type on the encoding of visual memory in a way-finding process. This focus, which is a very important part of the way-finding process, has been investigated by conducting an experiment where active and passive traveller participants were navigated in a familiar and partially familiar environment. The effect of active travel on spatial and visual memory has been examined and participants’ eye movements were tracked during scene recognition. The results have been discussed in terms of visual memory and visual cues in the built environment. Active travellers had better recognition of scenes encountered during way finding and were better able to discriminate the veridical orientation of these scenes from mirror-reversed copies. Moreover, active travellers had enhanced visual memory for the built environment. Accordingly, travel type not only can influence the cognitive configuration of the built environment, but also can influence the visual memory of wayfinders. Further, salient visual cues are informative for wayfinders disregarding travel type. Results indicate that different ways of exploration of the built environment (i.e. active and passive exploration) influence encoding of visual cues but does not influence the saliency of visual cues. It is suggested that visual memory should be considered as one of the variables in the LRS knowledge-based model. Besides the theoretical contribution, the thesis has several practical contributions in the context of visual memory and place-making for legible cities. The main contribution is related to enhancing the way-finding systems and legibility of urban areas. Further, identifying salient visual features can be utilized in major Development Applications and Planning Proposals by enhancing the visual impact analysis prior to any approvals from planning authorities. Strategic planners can also gain benefits from this thesis for any public domain and urban design studies where visual enhancement is desired to be achieved.
Males tend to outperform females in their knowledge of relative and absolute distances in spatial layouts and environments. It is unclear yet in how far these differences are innate or develop through life. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether gender differences in configurational knowledge for a natural environment might be modulated by experience. In order to examine this possibility, distance as well as directional knowledge of the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands was assessed in male and female inhabitants who had different levels of familiarity with this city. Experience affected the ability to solve difficult distance knowledge problems, but only for females. While the quality of the spatial representation of metric distances improved with more experience, this effect was not different for males and females. In contrast directional configurational measures did show a main gender effect but no experience modulation. In general, it seems that we obtain different configurational aspects according to different experiential time schemes. Moreover, the results suggest that experience may be a modulating factor in the occurrence of gender differences in configurational knowledge, though this seems dependent on the type of measurement. It is discussed in how far proficiency in mental rotation ability and spatial working memory accounts for these differences.
The ability to successfully navigate in healthcare facilities is an important goal for patients, visitors, and staff. Despite the fundamental nature of such behavior, it is not infrequent for planners to consider wayfinding only after the fact, once the building or building complex is complete. This review argues that more recognition is needed for the pivotal role of wayfinding in healthcare facilities. First, to provide context, the review presents a brief overview of the relationship between environmental psychology and healthcare facility design. Then, the core of the article covers advances in wayfinding research with an emphasis on healthcare environments, including the roles of plan configuration and manifest cues, technology, and user characteristics. Plan configuration and manifest cues, which appeared early on in wayfinding research, continue to play a role in wayfinding success and should inform design decisions. Such considerations are joined by emerging technologies (e.g., mobile applications, virtual reality, and computational models of wayfinding) as a way to both enhance our theoretical knowledge of wayfinding and advance its applications for users. Among the users discussed here are those with cognitive and/or visual challenges (e.g., Down syndrome, age-related decrements such as dementia, and limitations of vision). In addition, research on the role of cross-cultural comprehension and the effort to develop a system of universal healthcare symbols is included. The article concludes with a summary of the status of these advances and directions for future research.
The high level of complexity that is a compulsory result of the complex plan schemes worsens the perception and usage of locations. It was attempted in this research to determine the effects of education in architecture and spatial experience on the spatial complexity and the evaluations of the perception performance in the education buildings that have a high level of complexity. The research included the Selcuk University, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture Building and the students using this building. The subjects were asked about usage of the location and their spatial perception performance. Experiments were made on their recollection levels of the locations they use. Statistical analyses and reliability tests were made on the data obtained. Consequently, it was determined that training of the students did not cause a statistically significant variety in their perception of the buildings with a high level of complexity. The buildings evaluated as complex were then evaluated as simpler through an increase in experience.
This study was designed to explore the effects of color and light on indoor wayfinding and the subjective judgments of those perceiving the environment. Furthermore, how problems experienced in buildings with complex floor plans and successive spaces are addressed using variables such as color, brightness, and correlated color temperature through a desktop virtual reality environment. The experiment was conducted with the participation of 102 university students who experienced the indoor environments with various color and light variables, and evaluated these environments using concrete concepts like clear/blurry, attractive/unattractive, navigable/unnavigable and inviting/repellent. The scores for attractiveness and remembrance of warm colors were found to be higher than those for other colors, and the median scores for the positive perception of correlated color temperature were found to be higher than those concerning high and low level temperatures. However, it was confirmed that the use of warm and cool colors in indoor environments with low light levels were not taken into consideration by users of a space and were perceived negatively. Moreover, it was determined that compared to the males, females preferred high brightness levels.
The aim of this study was to evaluate motor control activity (active vs. passive condition) with regards to wayfinding and spatial learning difficulties in large-scale spaces for older adults. We compared virtual reality (VR)-based wayfinding and spatial memory (survey and route knowledge) performances between 30 younger and 30 older adults. A significant effect of age was obtained on the wayfinding performances but not on the spatial memory performances. Specifically, the active condition deteriorated the survey measure in all of the participants and increased the age-related differences in the wayfinding performances. Importantly, the age-related differences in the wayfinding performances, after an active condition, were further mediated by the executive measures. All of the results relative to a detrimental effect of motor activity are discussed in terms of a dual task effect as well as executive decline associated with aging.
Automated tracking of materials on construction projects has the potential to both improve project performance and enable effortless derivation of project performance indicators. This paper presents an approach by which materials tagged with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags can be automatically identified and tracked on construction sites, without adding to regular site operations. Essentially, this approach leverages automatic reading of tagged materials by field supervisors or materials handling equipment that are equipped with a RFID reader and a global positioning system receiver. To assess the technical feasibility of this approach, a mathematical model has been formulated such that the job site is represented as a grid and the location of materials within the grid is determined by combining proximity reads from a discrete range. Field experiments were conducted using an off-the-shelf RFID technology, and several metrics were developed to quantify the field performance and compare it with the theoretical positional accuracy derived from the discrete formulation.
The main library at the authors’ university campus, with its large size and multiple-level structures, is challenging for patrons to navigate. Requests for directions are among the most frequently posed questions at help desks in this library. As a first step toward improving wayfinding aids, such as maps or signs, we took a spatial science perspective of combining spatial and behavioral approaches to reveal objectively areas where wayfinding problems occur. To this end, we employed formal spatial descriptions of the environment addressing visibility, layout complexity, and connectivity. The term coined in the literature for these methods is “space syntax.” Additionally, we used a behavioral approach to investigate actual wayfinding behaviors of library patrons and compared these behaviors with the results of the space syntax analysis. The results show that a building's layout complexity and visual access potentially predicts how well patrons find their goals (books and other materials). Other aspects such as signs or individual characteristics of patrons were also found to play a role in understanding human wayfinding performance. The goal of this study was to broadly explore wayfinding problems in relation to the environment and to individual characteristics of patrons, such as their familiarity and sense of direction. Our approach introduces an objective perspective to assess wayfinding problems in libraries. Thereby, it provides potentially valuable information for library administrators towards the improvement of the design of library wayfinding systems.
How we acquire and represent spatial information is one of the most important unsolved issues in spatial cognition. Siegel and White (1975) affirmed that different forms of environmental knowledge are acquired and represented depending on the type of information selected: landmark, characterized by environmental patterns that are perceptually salient or important for the person; route, based on the pathes generally used to connect landmarks; and survey, an overall configuration of the environment, similar to a map. According to these authors, anyone can reach survey representation with extensive experience of the environment. Recently, Pazzaglia and co-workers (2000) demonstrated. that these three types of representations correspond to three different spatial cognitive styles. Conversely, according to Montello (1998) a pure landmark or route representation does not exist; indeed, during their first exposure to the environment, people acquire and represent an overall survey configuration of it.
Our aim was to determine whether environmental familiarity and/or spatial cognitive style predict the way we acquire and represent spatial information.
Forty participants who had different degrees of familiarity with the Italian city of Bologna took part in the experiment. Familiarity with Bologna was evaluated using a questionnaire. This city was selected because it has a small and well-defined centre that can be easily explored on foot. Participants were further subdivided by spatial cognitive style to assess its weight in environmental representation. They performed six spatial tasks concerning Bologna that measured different spatial abilities, based on Siegel and White’s frameworks (1975).
We found that neither familiarity with the environment nor spatial cognitive style predict the correct solution of landmark tasks, whereas both familiarity with the environment and spatial cognitive style predict the correct solution of route and survey tasks. Thus, we can affirm that both familiarity with the environment and spatial cognitive style are important for acquiring and representing spatial information, but their involvement depends on task demands. To our knowledge, this is the first study in which knowledge of a real town has been measured. This ecological setting allowed us to propose a new model to explain individual differences in moving successfully through the environment.
Although the term "Wayfinding" has been defined by several authors, it subsumes a whole set of tasks that involve different cognitive processes, drawing on different cognitive components. Research on wayfinding has been conducted with different paradigms using a variety of wayfinding tasks. This makes it difficult to compare the results and implications of many studies. A systematic classification is needed in order to determine and investigate the cognitive processes and structural components of how humans solve wayfinding problems. Current classifications of wayfinding distinguish tasks on a rather coarse level or do not take the navigator's knowledge, a key factor in wayfinding, into account. We present an extended taxonomy of wayfinding that distinguishes tasks by external constraints as well as by the level of spatial knowledge that is available to the navigator. The taxonomy will help to decrease ambiguity of wayfinding tasks and it will facilitate understanding of the differentiated demands a navigator faces when solving wayfinding problems.
Wayfinding in unfamiliar indoor and outdoor environments are particularly intricate problems of all the people’s activities.
The development of assistive technologies to aid wayfinding is hampered by the lack of reliable and efficient methods providing
location information in the environment. Location-based services (LBS) are systems which support wayfinding task as process.
They do not support landmark-based wayfinding although researchers agreed on its efficient role. In addition, one of the challenges
of LBS is the continuous query which guarantees the performance of the system. In this paper, we propose an efficient method
for 3D continuous k-NN query. Our method is based on three ideas, (1) The dynamic mobile objects have 3D coordinate space
(x,y,t) and static landmark with 2D spaces (x,y) (2) selecting landmarks which are the nearest neighbor of one or more continuous
queries, (3) indexing the queries rather than the landmarks. Through some experimental evaluation we demonstrate that our
method is applicable on increasing runtime and decreasing power consumption of mobile devices.
When people learn an environment, they appear to establish a principle orientation just as they would determine the "top" of a novel object. Evidence for reference orientations has largely come from observations of orientation dependence in pointing judgments: Participants are most accurate when asked to recall the space from a particular orientation. However, these investigations have used highly constrained encoding in both time-scale and navigational goals, leaving open the possibility that larger spaces experienced during navigational learning depend on a different organizational scheme. To test this possibility, we asked undergraduates to perform judgments of relative direction on familiar landmarks around their well-learned campus. Participants showed clear evidence for a single reference orientation, generally aligned along salient axes defined by the buildings and paths. This result argues that representing space involves the establishment of a reference orientation, a requirement that endures over repeated exposures and extensive experience.
It is often difficult, particularly when conducting research in psychology, to have access to large normally distributed samples. Fortunately, there are statistical tests to compare two independent groups that do not require large normally distributed samples. The Mann-Whitney U is one of these tests. In the following work, a summary of this test is presented. The explanation of the logic underlying this test and its application are presented. Moreover, the forces and weaknesses of the Mann-Whitney U are mentioned. One major limit of the Mann-Whitney U is that the type I error or alpha (?) is amplified in a situation of heteroscedasticity.
Expanding our knowledge on parenting practices of immigrant families is crucial for designing culturally sensitive parenting intervention programs in countries with high immigration rates. We investigated differences in patterns of parenting between second-generation immigrant and native families with young children. Authoritarian and authoritative control and sensitivity of second-generation Turkish immigrant mothers of 2-year-old children (n = 70) and native Dutch mothers (n = 70) were observed in the home and in the laboratory. Controlling for maternal age and education, Turkish immigrant mothers were less supportive, gave less clear instructions to their children, were more intrusive and were less authoritative in their control strategies than native Dutch mothers. No differences were found in authoritarian control. In both ethnic groups supportive presence, clarity of instruction, authoritative control, and low intrusiveness loaded on one factor. No differences between ethnic groups were found in gender-differentiated parenting. Maternal emotional connectedness to the Turkish culture was associated with less authoritative control, whereas more use of the Turkish language was related to more sensitivity. Even though mean level differences in parenting behaviors still exist between second-generation Turkish immigrant and native Dutch mothers, the patterns of associations between parenting behaviors were comparable for both groups. This suggests that existing parenting interventions for native families may be applicable to second-generation Turkish immigrants as well.
This study investigated the process of spatial knowledge acquisition in younger adults (20-30 years), middle-aged adults (40-50 years), and older adults (60-70 years) in a desktop virtual environment, where participants learned a way through a virtual maze, had to recall landmarks that were present in the maze, and had to draw an overview of the maze. The results revealed a general decline in spatial memory of the elderly, that is, in the time needed to learn a new route, in the retrieval of landmarks from memory (landmark knowledge), and in the ability to draw a map (configurational knowledge). When the route with landmarks was perfectly learned, however, there was no age dependent difference in finding the correct route without landmarks in the virtual maze (retrieval of route knowledge). Therefore, we conclude that not all aspects of spatial knowledge acquisition and spatial memory degrade with increasing age during adulthood.
This study aimed to examine the effect of repeated exposures to indoor environments on people’s indoor wayfinding performance, both under normal condition and during fire emergency which could induce significant mental stress. Indoor wayfinding experiments were conducted in an immersive virtual museum developed using virtual reality technologies. Participants of the experiments were divided into three groups, who participated in one, two and three trials, respectively. Those who participated in more than one trial were given an interval of two weeks between two consecutive trials. Each trial of the experiment included a treasure hunting task and an egress task. Participants were presented with a virtual fire emergency during the egress task of their last trial. Data of wayfinding performance measures of the participants, as well as their physiological and emotional responses, sense of direction, wayfinding anxiety and simulator sickness were collected and analyzed. The results revealed significant positive impact of repeated exposure on participants’ wayfinding performance, which resulted in a decrease in the time needed to complete the treasure hunting task. The results also revealed significant negative impact of mental stressed caused by the fire emergency on participants’ wayfinding performance, which led to increased travel time and distance during egress. Such negative impact of stress, however, could be noticeably diminished by the repeated exposures, showing significant interaction effect between these two factors.
When humans and animals navigate through environments, they form spatial memories important for supporting subsequent recall of locations relative to their own position and orientation, as well as to other object locations in the environment. The goal of the current study was to examine whether individual differences in initial exploration of a large-scale novel environment relate to subsequent spatial memories. A majority of studies examining spatial memory formed in large-scale spaces have constrained encoding of the environment by leading participants on pre-determined paths, thereby limiting their free exploration. We allowed participants to freely explore a large-scale, virtual environment to locate a set of objects within. We then tested their ability to navigate back to those objects as well as their ability to point to them from one another. Based on previous work suggesting gender differences in navigation strategies and spatial anxiety, we predicted that males and females would show different patterns of initial exploration and that these exploration patterns would account for gender differences in measures of spatial memory. We found that females revisited previous locations more often and showed lower rates of spreading through an area. These measures of exploration partially accounted for gender differences in efficiency in navigation and pointing accuracy to remembered locations. The results demonstrate the importance of exploration in spatial memory and provide a new perspective on gender differences in spatial cognition.
Proposes models of the spatial knowledge people acquire from maps and navigation and the procedures required for spatial judgments using this knowledge. From a map people acquire survey knowledge encoding global spatial relations. This knowledge resides in memory in images that can be scanned and measured like a physical map. From navigation people acquire procedural knowledge of the routes connecting diverse locations. People combine mental simulation of travel through the environment and informal algebra to compute spatial judgments. An experiment in which subjects learned an environment from navigation or from a map evaluates predictions of these models. -from Selected Rand Abstracts
The goal was to test the role of verbal and visuospatial working memory in wayfinding and direction giving in an indoor environment using a dual task paradigm. One hundred ninety-two participants were asked to find their way through one floor of a complex building and to provide directions for a fictitious recipient to find the way in one of three conditions: control (no secondary task), verbal dual task (word-nonword judgments as secondary task), or visuospatial dual task (clock hand judgments as secondary task). Wayfinding was slower in the visuospatial dual task condition than in the control condition, with the verbal condition intermediate. Directions were less accurate in the visuospatial dual task condition than in control and verbal conditions. Women provided more information in wayfinding directions than did men. Together, these findings indicate that visuospatial working memory plays an important role in wayfinding and direction giving in an indoor environment.
This article investigates the extent to which classical gender stereotypes are transmitted in the public space of higher education institutions and how this contributes to maintaining a social vision in which an unequal distribution of gender persists. This study analyzes, from a multimodal perspective, posters hung on walls in secondary schools and a university in a Spanish city over a period of several months. Results show that although the linguistic messages used in these posters avoid any reference to gender, images continue to represent classical stereotypes in a subtle and an inexplicit way. Images depict daily life activities, unexceptional and apparently without gender ideology. However, they still associate gender with classical roles. In this context, the explicit institutional educational discourse contrasts with the still persistent implicit transmission of a sexist idea of the genders in the visual representations analyzed.
This study explores the differences among tourists in their wayfinding performances, strategy preferences, and anxieties, and examines how individual tourist differences in the perceived wayfinding difficulties, strategy preferences, and anxieties affect wayfinding task performance in unfamiliar tourist destinations. The study participants were 540 outbound tourists traveling from Taiwan to Venice. The analysis revealed the following: (1) There was a higher level of anxiety in female tourists and a greater preference for the route wayfinding strategy. Male tourists reported a lower level of wayfinding anxiety and used orientation wayfinding more often than route strategy. (2) Study participants with independent overseas travel experience showed lower levels of wayfinding anxiety than did those without independent travel experience. (3) Participants’ level of anxiety is significantly positively correlated with their perceptions of wayfinding difficulties and the orientation strategy preference but significantly negatively correlated with the route strategy preference. Individual wayfinding strategy preference, perceived wayfinding difficulties, and wayfinding anxiety affect wayfinding performance, as have other studies.
Objectives
IntroductionThe Chi-Square Goodness-of-Fit TestThe Chi-Square Test for IndependenceThe Fisher Exact TestExamples from the LiteratureSummaryPractice QuestionsSolutions to Practice Questions
Evacuation from a smoke filled tunnel requires quick decision-making and swift action from the tunnel occupants. Technical installations such as emergency signage aim to guide tunnel occupants to the closest emergency exits. However, conflicting information may come from the behavior of other tunnel occupants. We examined if and how conflicting social information may affect evacuation in terms of delayed and/or inadequate evacuation decisions and behaviors. To this end, forty participants were repeatedly situated in a virtual reality smoke filled tunnel with an emergency exit visible to one side of the participants. Four social influence conditions were realized. In the control condition participants were alone in the tunnel, while in the other three experimental conditions a virtual agent (VA) was present. In the no-conflict condition, the VA moved to the emergency exit. In the active conflict condition, the VA moved in the opposite direction of the emergency exit. In the passive conflict condition, the VA stayed passive. Participants were less likely to move to the emergency exit in the conflict conditions compared to the no-conflict condition. Pre-movement and movement times in the passive conflict condition were significantly delayed compared to all other conditions. Participants moved the longest distances in the passive conflict condition. These results support the hypothesis that social influence affects evacuation behavior, especially passive behavior of others can thwart an evacuation to safety.
A wealth of evidence in rodents and humans supports the central roles of two learning systems-hippocampal place learning and striatal response learning-in the formation of spatial representations to support navigation. Individual differences in the ways that these mechanisms are engaged during initial encoding and subsequent navigation may provide a powerful framework for explaining the wide range of variability found in the strategies and solutions that make up human navigational styles. Previous work has revealed that activation in the hippocampal and striatal networks during learning could predict navigational style. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the relative activations in these systems during both initial encoding and the act of dynamic navigation in a learned environment. Participants learned a virtual environment and were tested on subsequent navigation to targets within the environment. We observed that a given individual had a consistent balance of memory system engagement across both initial encoding and subsequent navigation, a balance that successfully predicted the participants' tendencies to use novel shortcuts versus familiar paths during dynamic navigation. This was further supported by the observation that the activation during subsequent retrieval was not dependent on the type of solution used on a given trial. Taken together, our results suggest a model in which the place- and response-learning systems are present in parallel to support a variety of navigational behaviors, but stable biases in the engagement of these systems influence what solutions might be available for any given individual.
Healthcare facilities are often complex and overwhelming for visitors, and wayfinding in healthcare facilities can be challenging. As there is an increasing number of global citizens who travel to seek medical care in another country, it is critical to make wayfinding easy for visitors who are not familiar with the language in a foreign country. Among many wayfinding aids, symbols are helpful for those visitors who have limited ability to understand written language. This study tested universal healthcare symbols in the United States, South Korea, and Turkey to compare the comprehension of symbols cross-country and identify predictors of the correct comprehension. To explore statistically significant relationships between symbol comprehension and countries, Pearson's Chi-square tests, logistic regression, and ANOVA were conducted. The test results showed that ten symbols among 14 tested have significant relationship with countries. Results of this study demonstrate that symbol comprehension can be varied significantly in different countries.
This research examines the influence of language on the responses of bilingual Hong Kong Chinese managers. Subjects responded to either a Chinese or an English version of the Schwartz Values Survey instrument. The results suggest that the language in which an instrument is administered may produce "culturally accommodating" responses that can affect the results of a cross-cultural study.
Signage is commonly employed to enhance wayfinding efficiency, especially in buildings with complex floor plan configurations. This study examines the influence of floor plan complexity and several types of signage on wayfinding within a series of buildings on a university campus. The study used a 5 x 3 factorial experimental design. The first factor, complexity of floor plan configuration, is defined through five alternatives. The second factor, signage, has three conditions: no signage, textual signage, or graphic signage. The results show that as floor plan complexity increases, wayfinding performance decreases. Graphic signage produced the greatest rate of travel in all settings, but textual signage was the most effective in reducing wayfinding errors, such as wrong turns and backtracking. Overall, the addition of signage resulted in a 13% increase in rate of travel, a 50% decrease in wrong turns, and a 62% decrease in backtracking across the five settings. However, plan configuration was found to exert a significant influence regardless of signage, because the wayfinding performance of participants with access to signage in the most complex settings remained equivalent to, or significantly poorer than, those in the simplest settings with no signage.
One potentially significant, yet hardly investigated, criterion for postoccupancy evaluation is the legibility of a setting—the degree to which a building or group of buildings facilitate the ability of users to find their way around. Legibility is one of the foundation concepts of environmental psychology, yet it has not often been considered enough as a guiding principle in design. The purpose of this paper is to analyse spatial orientation and wayfinding problems encountered by newcomers (freshman students) at the King Saud University (KSU) campus, Saudi Arabia, and to test/relate this to Lynch's elements of the image of cities. The analysis draws on previous research findings, theories, and more general observations, as well as observations made of wayfinding performance and map sketching by 30 high-school students likely to soon enroll at the university. Many specific problems with orientation and the architectural legibility of the buildings are identified and discussed. Emphasis is placed upon physical-setting variables that are likely to affect the ease with which spatial orientation and wayfinding are accomplished. These include the following facets of the KSU built environment: degree of differentiation; degree of visual access; and complexity of spatial layout.Legible buildings within which people can effectively maintain their orientation and find their way, according to this research, are in no way simplistic, dull, or boring; on the contrary, settings must possess distinctive landmarks and regions which, along with understandable path networks, allow users to know where they are and how to make their way to desired destinations. Coherent and legible environments are important in the lives of the people who use them. The movement of people through buildings and the factors that influence whether or not they are able to find their way need to continue to be of significance to both researchers and practitioners.
Individuals create cognitive maps based on relationships between cues in the environment. Older individuals are often impaired in wayfinding, especially in environments that lack distinctive features. This study examines how working memory ability in older women is related to wayfinding performance in the presence of salient (distinctive, prominent) or nonsalient cues. The degree of salient cue complexity is also examined, thus leading to the hypothesis that salient, complex cues are important in wayfinding and that working memory capacity is related to wayfinding performance. The virtual computer-generated arena is used to test this hypothesis in 20 healthy older women in three different environmental cue conditions varying in salience and complexity. Data analyses indicate that older women perform best in salient cue conditions. A greater working memory capacity is related to improved performance in the nonsalient cue condition. These findings offer preliminary evidence that cue salience is especially important in wayfinding.
Wayfinding, presented as a major design issue, concerns the spatial organization of a setting, the circulation system and architectural as well as graphic communication. The layout and the circulation routes define the wayfinding problems people will have to solve while architectural and graphic communication provide the user with the information to solve the imposed problems. This paper gives an overview of the approach and the underlying logic of wayfinding design and reflects on the question of universality and its limits.
Given C samples, with ni observations in the ith sample, a test of the hypothesis that the samples are from the same population may be made by ranking the observations from from 1 to Σni (giving each observation in a group of ties the mean of the ranks tied for), finding the C sums of ranks, and computing a statistic H. Under the stated hypothesis, H is distributed approximately as χ(C – 1), unless the samples are too small, in which case special approximations or exact tables are provided. One of the most important applications of the test is in detecting differences among the population means.** Based in part on research supported by the Office of Naval Research at the Statistical Research Center, University of Chicago.
Symbols are widely used internationally to communicate to people with different languages, but the large O number of symbols for any particular meaning or referent may cause confusion. Some international organizations attempt to prevent this confusion by recommending standard symbols, and in some cases base their recommendation on the results of assessing the comprehensibility of alternative symbol designs. In this study, four variants of a public information symbol for an automatic teller machine (cash machine) were compared in three countries (United Kingdom, Korea, and Iran) using the comprehension judgement test recommended by the International Standards Organization in ISO 9186: 2001. In this test respondents are shown variants of a symbol, told the intended meaning, and asked to estimate the percentage of the general population that they expect would understand each variant correctly. The data from the three countries are interpreted as supporting the view that the criterion a variant of a public information symbol must reach before it can be recommended as a standard should be 66% rather than 85%. The responses indicated that respondents in the three different countries agreed on the variant estimated to be most comprehensible. This showed the more realistic representation of the position of a hand and fingers when using the machine, indicating that more realistic portrayals yield higher estimates. A variant that did not include a hand obtained the lowest estimates. Respondents from Iran gave lower estimates of comprehensibility than those from UK and Korea, emphasizing the need to collect data from different countries when gathering information on which to base an international standard symbol. The agreement between the three countries is seen as support for the view that there are general principles that can be applied to help make a symbol more meaningful, and for the use of the judgement test when deciding on an internationally standard symbol.
We examined how culture and recipient perspective affect direction giving during wayfinding. Participants from the United States and the Netherlands provided directions from starting locations to destinations for fictional recipients driving through a town (route perspective) or looking at a map of the town (survey perspective). US participants provided street names more frequently than did Dutch participants, whereas Dutch participants provided landmarks more frequently than did US participants. Moreover, US participants provided more cardinal descriptors when addressing listeners adopting a survey perspective relative to a route perspective but more landmarks and left-right descriptors when addressing listeners adopting a route perspective relative to a survey perspective. Participants from the Netherlands evinced a similar pattern with the important distinction that they mostly ignored cardinal terms, unless explicitly primed to do so and in a survey condition. In addition, this very low usage of cardinal terms seemed to be replaced by using more landmark descriptions. This study revealed remarkable flexibility in people's spatial descriptions but also stressed major differences in the use of spatial terms between US and Dutch participants.
While numerous studies have investigated the relationship between environmental familiarity and spatial cognition, no research has systematically examined the effects of familiarity on wayfinding performance. This experiment used a 5 × 5 factorial design to investigate the effects of floor plan complexity and degree of familiarity on spatial cognition and wayfinding. Subjects received five trials within one of five computer-simulated environments representing a range of plan complexity. Wayfinding performance data was collected during each trial. After all trials were completed, environmental knowledge was assessed through a sketchmap task. MANOVAs showed that wayfinding performance significantly decreased as a function of plan complexity. Plan complexity also significantly influenced sketchmap accuracy. Trend analysis showed a significant linear trend for wayfinding errors, which decreased with experience. This analysis also revealed a signficant interaction between plan complexity and experience on wayfinding. The findings suggest that environmental complexity has less of an impact on wayfinding as familiarity increases.
Environmental spatial abilities are involved in everyday tasks such as finding one's way in the environment and learning the layout of a new environment. Self-report measures of environmental abilities, e.g., asking people to rate their “sense of direction (SOD),” have been found to predict objective measures of these abilities quite highly. In this study, we developed a standardized self-report scale of environmental spatial ability, the Santa Barbara Sense of Direction Scale (SBSOD). The scale proved to be internally consistent and had good test–retest reliability. A series of four validity studies examined its relation to measures of spatial updating and acquisition of spatial knowledge at different scales and acquired from different learning experiences. These studies suggested that the SBSOD is related to tasks that require one to update location in space as a result of self-motion. It is more highly correlated with tests of spatial knowledge that involve orienting oneself within the environment than with tests that involve estimating distances or drawing maps. Self-report SOD is also somewhat more highly correlated with measures of spatial knowledge acquired from direct experience in the environment than with measures of knowledge acquired from maps, video, or virtual environments (VE).
Most psychometric tests of spatial ability are paper-and-pencil tasks at the “figural” scale of space, in that they involve inspecting, imagining or mentally transforming small shapes or manipulable objects. Environmental spatial tasks, such as wayfinding or learning the layout of a building or city, are carried out in larger spaces that surround the body and involve integration of the sequence of views that change with one's movement in the environment. In a correlational study, 221 participants were tested on psychometric measures of spatial abilities, spatial updating, verbal abilities and working memory. They also learned the layout of large environments from direct experience walking through a real environment, and via two different media: a desktop virtual environment (VE) and a videotape of a walk through an environment. In an exploratory factor analysis, measures of environmental learning from direct experience defined a separate factor from measures of learning based on VE and video media. In structural-equation models, small-scale spatial abilities predicted performance on the environmental-learning tasks, but were more predictive of learning from media than from direct experience. The results indicate that spatial abilities at different scales of space are partially but not totally dissociated. They specify the degree of overlap between small-scale and large-scale spatial abilities, inform theories of sex differences in these abilities, and provide new insights about what these abilities have in common and how they differ.
The present study focuses on the following question: How positive and negative emotions mediate the effects of justice on loyalty in an actual service recovery situation related to retail banking? The specific effects of the three dimensions of justice (distributive, interactional and procedural) on the actual loyalty–exit of customers were shown to be quite different from each other. Interactional justice (e.g., courtesy) plays a predominant role, since it impacts both positive and negative emotions and the exit–loyalty behavior. Distributive justice (e.g., compensation offered to the complaining customers) affects the behavior through the symmetrical mediating effects of negative and positive emotions. Procedural justice (i.e., timeliness), which has asymmetric effects on emotions and behavior, plays the role of a “basic requirement”. These results are interpreted in terms of Justice Theory and Affect Control Theory (ACT) and in terms of managerial implications for services organizations, such as employees' training and complaints' handling.
We spend upwards of 90% of our lives within buildings, yet we know much more about the effects of ambient environmental conditions on human health than we do about how buildings affect our health. This article employs the heuristic of psychological stress to generate a taxonomy of architectural dimensions that may affect human health. Specific interior design elements illustrating each of these architectural dimensions are provided. There is little existing evidence that specific design features directly impact human health. The aim of this article is to provoke further thinking and research on this possibility.@ 1998 Academic Press
Three levels of virtual environment (VE) metric are proposed, based on: (I) users' task performance (time taken, distance traveled, and number of errors made), (2) physical behavior (locomotion, looking around, and time and error classification), and (3) decision making (i.e., cognitive) rationale (think aloud, interview, and questionnaire). Examples of the use of these metrics are drawn from a detailed review of research into VE wayfinding. A case study from research into the fidelity that is required for efficient VE wayfinding is presented, showing the unsuitability in some circumstances of common metrics of task performance such as time and distance, and the benefits to be gained by making fine-grained analyses of users' behavior. Taken as a whole, the paper highlights the range of techniques that have been successfully used to evaluate wayfinding and explains in detail how some of these techniques may be applied.
While existing evidence suggests that older adults have compromised spatial navigation abilities, the effects of age on specific aspects of navigational skill are less well specified. The current study examined age effects on spatial navigation abilities considering the multiple cognitive and neural factors that contribute to successful navigation. Young and older adults completed wayfinding and route learning tasks in a virtual environment and aspects of environmental knowledge were assessed. Prefrontal, caudate and hippocampal volumes were obtained in a subset of older adults. Age differences were observed in both wayfinding and route learning. For wayfinding, there were age effects in recalling landmarks, and recognizing environmental scenes. In the route learning condition, older adults evidenced difficulty with the location, temporal order and directional information of landmarks. In both conditions, there was evidence of age-related differences in the acquisition of configural knowledge. Wayfinding was associated with the hippocampus whereas route learning was associated with the caudate nucleus. These results provide indications of specific aspects of navigational learning that may contribute to age-related declines and potential neural substrates.