Title: A review of wayfinding and a new virtual reality system for wayfinding studies

Authors: Fanxing Meng; Wei Zhang

Addresses: State Key Laboratory of Automotive Safety and Energy, Department of Industrial Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China ' State Key Laboratory of Automotive Safety and Energy, Department of Industrial Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Abstract: The Virtual Reality (VR) systems for wayfinding studies, the evaluation metrics for wayfinding performance and the factors affecting wayfinding performances are summarised and discussed in the present study. The VR systems covered by this study include desktop, large display, Head-Mounted Display (HMD), Fish Tank and Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE) systems. Three levels of evaluation metrics are reviewed, which are task performance, physical behaviours and cognitive rationale. Factors affecting wayfinding performance are divided into four categories: personal factors, wayfinding strategy factors, environmental factors and navigation support tool factors, each of which has several sub-factors. Effects of these factors on wayfinding performance are discussed. Finally, a new VR system developed by this study for wayfinding problems is introduced and a perspective on future wayfinding research is provided.

Keywords: virtual reality; evaluation metrics; personal factors; wayfinding strategy; environmental factors; navigation tools; task performance; physical behaviour; cognitive rationale; wayfinding performance; destination orientation; route planning.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOI.2012.051399

International Journal of Services Operations and Informatics, 2012 Vol.7 No.2/3, pp.197 - 211

Received: 01 Dec 2011
Accepted: 09 Aug 2012

Published online: 27 Dec 2014 *

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