Understanding the Effect of the Combination of Navigation Tools in Learning Spatial Knowledge

Spatial knowledge about the environment often helps people accomplish their navigation and wayfinding tasks more efficiently. Off-the-shelf mobile navigation applications often focus on guiding people to go between two locations, ignoring the importance of learning spatial knowledge. Drawing on theories and findings from the area of learning spatial knowledge, we investigated how the background reference frames (RF) and navigational cues can be combined in navigation applications to help people acquire better spatial (route and survey) knowledge. We conducted two user studies, where participants used our custom-designed applications to navigate in an indoor location. We found that having more navigational cues in a navigation application does not always assist users in acquiring better spatial knowledge; rather, these cues can be distracting in some specific setups. Users can acquire better spatial knowledge only when the navigational cues complement each other in the interface design. We discussed the implications of designing navigation interfaces that can assist users in learning spatial knowledge by combining navigational elements in a complimentary way.