It’s also about timing! When do pedestrians want to receive navigation instructions

Abstract

Despite the increased research interest in wayfinding assistance systems, research on the appropriate point in time or space to automatically present a route instruction remains a desideratum. We address this research gap by reporting on the results of an outdoor, within-subject design wayfinding study (𝘕=52). Participants walked two different routes for which they requested spoken, landmark-based turn-by-turn route instructions. By means of a survival analysis, we model the points in space at which participants issue such requests, considering personal, environmental, route- and trial-related variables. We reveal different landcover classes (e.g., densely built-up areas) and personal variables (e.g., egocentric orientation and age) to be important, discuss potential reasons for their impact and derive open research questions.