User experience and strategy choices during navigation: A content analysis of navigators using different types of wayfinding devices Verena Schnitzler (
[email protected]) Christoph Hölscher (
[email protected]) ETH Zürich, Chair for Cognitive Science, Clausiusstrasse 59, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland Abstract to find the next emergency exit in a very small amount of time. Assuming that a building’s functions are its In this study, we compared navigation through a large, complex, public building a) without any map, b) with a printed map, or c) intelligibility and usability it seems reasonable to posit that with a digital map. Participants looked for five different these are moderating factors in the building’s design. The destinations while thinking aloud, filled out questionnaires, and usability of a building may also depend (in part) on the answered open questions about the wayfinding task and about devices designed to make it navigable (i.e., signs, printed the building and the maps. A content analysis was used in order maps, digital maps). Different navigations aids can induce to identify key factors in the building’s and maps’ design that specific representations of the environment. While signs facilitated or hindered successful and satisfactory usage. There was a significant search time difference between the no-map may induce a representation based largely on landmarks and group and the two map groups. There were no differences in individual routes, maps allow for a more birds-eye survey how efficiently the two map groups found destinations. The representation (e.g. Ishikawa & Montello, 2006; Siegel & analysis of post-experiment questionnaires exhibited a similar White, 1975).