Abstract
An experiment was conducted to study differences in workload and performance of participants when navigating a route. Participants used a mobile device to navigate a route in a building. Different types of representation were used: a paper floor plan and three representations presented on a personal digital assistant (PDA). In the PDA based conditions, an overview of the floor plan was presented in a picture viewer. Since the plan was much larger than the PDA screen, participants moved different parts of the plan into view using a stylus. Floor plans were also presented as a sequence of plan fragments on the PDA which were advanced by the user according to location. Results show significantly shorter route completion times for participants using the paper plan compared with the PDA support. Significant differences in workload, effort and mental demand were also found between the types of representation. The paper plan condition elicited the lowest levels of workload and the shortest route completion times. Implications for the design of location-based navigation support are discussed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.