IT: wayfinding
article 0: Go through this powerpoint to get a quick overview of the material below.
Wayfinding
Wayfinding is the cognitive component of moving around in an environment. It needs high level thinking, planning and decision-making related to user movement. It involved spatial understanding and planning tasks, such as determining the current location within the environment, determining a path from the current location to a goal location and building a mental map of the environment. In virtual worlds, way finding can be crucial, an efficient travel technique needs to be combined with an overview of routing and knowing where to go.
Wayfinding techniques manifest as way finding aids as part of the interface or in the environment of the VR-experience. They only support the performance of the task in the user’s mind.
article 1: Creating Impactful Spatial Experiences Wayfinding is a Decision Making Process which needs clarity, metaphors can be useful.
User-Centered Wayfinding Cues
User-centered Wayfinding cues make use of the characteristics of human perception and can draw upon multiple human senses. Thus, most user-centered support is display-oriented. There are several strategies that designers and developers can handle to support the challenges that the human perceptual system and VR-hardware will keep on facing.
Field of View (FOV): larger FOV (> 40-80 degrees) reduce head movement. Small FOV's lead to cyber sickness.
Motion Cues: the peripheral vision provides strong motion cues (direction, velocity, orientation during movement), yet additional vestibular (inertia & balance, which usually are related to embodied self-motion cues) cues are necessary as well.
Multisensory Output: Tactile maps (a map which contours are raised so they can be sensed by touch as well as sight. Tactile cues can aid in the formation and usage of spatial memory. Audio use for Wayfinding is still an open question.
Presence: influential factors can be sensory immersion, proprioception, immersion into the whole experience. The inclusion of the 'own' virtual body also enhanced presence.
Search Strategies: novice users depend strongly on landmarks, whereas skilled users make use of cues like paths (such as a coast line). Usage of search strategies can increase the effectiveness. (Birds eye-view, temporarily move to a height above the ground.
Environment-Centered Wayfinding Cues
Environment-centered Wayfinding cues refer to the conscious design of the virtual world to support Wayfinding.
Environment legibility: think of paths (linear), edges (enclosing), districts (quickly identifiable), nodes (gathering points), landmarks (static objects). Great examples come from urban planning, for urban traffic zones like Schiphol by Paul Mijksenaar.
Landmarks: easily distinguishable objects, global landmarks for directional cues and local for decision-making by providing information.
Maps: most common in daily life, but very complex to design for in virtual environments. Needn't necessarily be a spatial representation, but can also categorise and place hierarchical structure at its core. Environmental clutter vs Neat & Empty
Compasses: provide directional cues, great for implementation in maps.
Signs: see the video of Paul Mijksenaar at 'environment legibility'.
Trails: helps users to retrace their steps.
Reference Objects:well-known objects like chairs and human figures to determine size in virtual reality.
Terrain Features
Opening: ground can be open or cluttered. Open environments let you move in any direction, while cluttered environments guide locomotion through openings.
Paths afford motion between other terrain features.
Obstacles are human-scaled objects that afford collision.
Barriers, such as walls, are a kind of obstacle that tends to block vision as well as movement.
Water margins prevent locomotion.
Brinks, such as the edge of a cliff, are dangerous. Users will either avoid these places or plunge into them with reckless abandon.
Steps afford both descent and ascent.
Slopes also imply descent or ascent, but might be too steep or slippery.
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