Exploring Requirements For Indoor Navigation Systems

Submitted September 2013, in partial fulfilment of the conditions of the award of the degree [ MSc in HCI]

Chunxiao Ni School of Computer Science University of Nottingham

I hereby declare that this dissertation is all my own work, except as indicated in the text:

Signature Date

Chunxiao Ni 05/09/2013

ABTRACT
Indoor navigation has been a subject in ubiquitous computing domain in the past decade. Recently many studies focus on exploring user requirements for indoor navigation systems and make effort in developing effective interactive systems to support indoor navigation. This study aims to find which kind of spatial representation and what orientation cues common users prefer to use for indoor navigation. An experiment was performed to examine the navigation effectiveness and user satisfaction with a prototype indoor navigation system. The results reveal there is no accordant preference for a certain spatial representation or orientation cue. And additional orientation cues do not bring improved navigation effectiveness, compared with a single static map. More requirements for indoor navigation systems are also found in the study. Keywords: Indoor Navigation, Orientation

CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 1 2. INDOOR NAVIGATION AND HCI............................................................................................. 2 2.1 Spatial Representations and Navigation Strategies ............................................................. 3 2.11 Egocentric and allocentric representation ................................................................. 3 2.12 Path integration and landmark navigation ................................................................. 3 2.2 Indoor Positioning ............................................................................................................... 4 2.21 Dead-reckoning (Sensor-based positioning) ............................................................. 4 2.22 Direct sensing (Sensor-based positioning) ................................................................ 5 2.23 Triangulation (Common algorithm for sensor-based positioning) ............................ 6 2.24 Pattern recognition .................................................................................................... 6 2.3 User-centered Indoor Navigation System ........................................................................... 7 3. METHOD ..................................................................................................................................... 8 3.1 Participants .......................................................................................................................... 8 3.2 Experimental Design ........................................................................................................... 9 3.3 Questionnaire Design ........................................................................................................ 10 3.4 Procedure .......................................................................................................................... 10 4. INTERFACE ............................................................................................................................... 12 5. IMPLEMENTATION.................................................................................................................. 15 5.1 Getting Started .................................................................................................................. 15 5.2 Orientation Sensor............................................................................................................. 15 5.21 Egocentric mode...................................................................................................... 16 5.22 Allocentric mode ..................................................................................................... 18 5.3 Calibration......................................................................................................................... 18 5.4 Timer ................................................................................................................................. 19 6. QUANTITATIVE RESULTS AND FINDINGS ......................................................................... 20 7. QUALITATIVE RESULTS AND FINDINGS ............................................................................ 23 7.1 The Need of Clear Map and Route.................................................................................... 24 7.2 The Need of Real-time Positioning with Orientation ........................................................ 26 7.3 The Need of Accuracy and Stability.................................................................................. 27 7.4 The Importance of Ease of Use ......................................................................................... 28 7.5 Confidence and Initiative .................................................................................................. 29 7.6 The Need of Guide ............................................................................................................ 31 8. REDESIGN ................................................................................................................................. 31 8.1 Interface and Justification ................................................................................................. 31 8.2 Technical Issues ................................................................................................................ 34 8.3 Focus Group and Results .................................................................................................. 36 9. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ......................................................................................... 37 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .............................................................................................................. 40 REFERENCE.................................................................................................................................. 40

1. INTRODUCTION
The world is big and changing. People tend to use navigation aids when traveling around, especially in a new place. Thus outdoor navigation systems built in portable devices have become popular over the past years. Global Positioning System (GPS) is widely applied in these systems, as a common solution to outdoor localization [26]. With the fast advance in architecture, most of the buildings are large and innovative, such as museums, galleries, exhibition halls, and etc. Being in complex interior space, people are easy to get lost or feel it hard to find their targets. Moreover, situations are worse to the blind or partially sighted people. In order to support effective and efficient navigation inside big buildings, an indoor navigation system appears to be necessary. Positioning has proved to be the key component of a navigation system, either for outdoor navigation or indoor [2, 15]. However, GPS cannot work effectively inside or between buildings due to its limitations, as GPS signals are carried through waves at a frequency that does not penetrate easily through solid objects (such as concrete walls). In addition, GPS is a 2D system which is not very applicable in multi-story buildings, because it cannot tell which floor the user is on [34]. Thus indoor positioning technology is required, for promoting ubiquitous computing indoors. Ubiquitous computing aims at making many computers available throughout the physical environment invisibly [32]. Long before the invention of positioning technology, people found their way according to the position of the sun and the stars. Later, the compass came into being, facilitating people in recognizing directions. Nowadays, positioning and orientation are often combined in use. For example, in Google Map Mobile, users are represented as a blue arrow on the map. The arrow can locate the user and show his/her orientation synchronously. As for indoor navigation, much research has been done to examine the effect of different indoor positioning technologies, some of which provide orientation cues [1, 16, 21]. However, no research has been done yet to explore whether the users really need orientation clues indoors and how they prefer their orientation to be presented. This study aims to explore which kind of spatial representation and what orientation cues common users prefer to use for indoor navigation, when provided with no location information. Besides, it expects to unearth more user requirements for a better indoor navigation system. A prototype indoor navigation system was developed based on the use of different spatial representation, to examine the navigation effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction. The system was implemented on the Android platform, and tested in Samsung Note1 (a type of smart phone produced by the Samsung company). There are three navigation modes in the system.
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Baseline Mode - This mode is set as baseline. It provides a static map only, no other information. Egocentric Mode - This mode provides a dynamic map which can rotate automatically according to the change of the users orientation. Egocentric information is mainly used to present the immediate environments centered on the observer [11]. Thus an egocentric map is supposed to adjust itself to fit the environment around the user. In this mode, the map will be presented only in four angles due to its regular shape (square). Allocentric Mode - This mode contains a static map and a dynamic direction arrow which can indicate the orientation of the user. Allocentric information is able to show environments beyond the visible vicinity [11]. An allocentric map is typically represented in a north-up direction, independent of individuals location or orientation [11]. In this mode, the map is allocentric and the arrow is used to provide orientation cues.

In the experiment, participants were asked to navigate themselves in a 16*16m indoor maze. They were given three navigation tasks, each of which applied one of the three navigation modes. Participants were timed during the tasks. At the end of each task, participants were given a questionnaire to rate how difficult they found it to complete the task, and write down comments (e.g. helpful and unhelpful aspects) about the navigation mode they just experienced. After completing all the tasks, participants got a debriefing questionnaire to choose their preferred navigation mode and justify the preference. This study also extends to the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), exploring how to build an useful indoor navigation system based on the requirements of a wide range of potential users. HCI aims to design an interactive computer system which is effective, efficient, easy and enjoyable to use, taking into account human users requirements and their contexts [13]. As HCI theories suggest iterative design in software process [13], the prototype system was redesigned based on the findings from the experiments results and evaluated by using focus group method.

2. INDOOR NAVIGATION AND HCI

Indoor navigation has not been the subject of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research, but some aspects of indoor navigation systems are relative to the HCI domain. This section does not include all the aspects needed in implementing a successful indoor navigation system, but introduces some related theories and
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applications that may help in this study.

2.1 Spatial Representations and Navigation Strategies

2.11 Egocentric and allocentric representation A reference frame is a means of representing the locations of entities in Space. [20] Different frames of reference are used to determine the locations of objects in a visual environment [3]. Egocentric reference frame is regarded as observer-based, representing locations by using a constant reference point (e.g. the observers body) [3, 11, 20]. As for the allocentric frame, locations are defined based on a framework of the external environment, independent of the observers position [3, 11]. Allocentric frame is more like object-based, in which landmarks are often used to measure spatial relations. The main distinction between these two reference frames is whether the location information relies on the users motion. The egocentric information represents the immediate environment around the observer [11]. It updates rapidly while the user is navigating through the environment. Thus it is high transient and hard to be stored in spatial memory for long [3, 23]. Egocentric updating has been found effective in short-term navigation [3], such as avoiding near obstacles (e.g. doors and walls) [23]. But it is not sufficient to support a continuous navigation, due to its transience which may cause user getting lost in the environment [23]. Some studies [23] disconfirm that egocentric representations have better performance in familiar environments than in unfamiliar ones. Conversely, allocentric information, independent of the user motion is enduring and stable [3]. It provides a overview of the environment (within and beyond the vision) and environmental clues (landmarks), which commonly utilized by the user to estimate distances and directions [11]. Much research has indicated that both egocentric and allocentric information are used in spatial priming [3]. The shift of their use in brain is a complex process, but it is found that users often tend to utilize egocentric cues after successfully mapping the environment with allocentric cues [9, 11]. This phenomenon implies users may employ different strategies and switch between them during a navigation tasks. 2.12 Path integration and landmark navigation Humans use different strategies when navigating in an outdoor/indoor environment. In general, there are two ways: path integration (dead reckoning) and landmark (map) [9]. In case of path integration, people use distance or orientation from a specific point as reference, independent of a map. In landmark navigation, people first build a cognitive map of the environment and consider their spatial relationships with the landmarks [9, 18]. According to the spatial representations mentioned above, it is not hard to realize path integration is based on egocentric reference frame, and landmark navigation uses allocentric cues. Studies [18] show humans shift navigation
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strategies when navigating. Landmark-based approaches are first used in a new environment, then path integration uses landmarks as reference points [18]. Cognitive map is the mental map human create for an environment and their location relationships with landmarks [15]. It is essential for a successful navigation task, thus correct cognitive mapping appears to be very important. Visual sense and cognitive ability are two main factors influencing cognitive mapping [15]. So people with vision and/or cognitive impairment have varying degree of difficulties in creating a cognitive map, especially in new environments where way finding requires time and attention [15, 33]. Moreover, the emergency crew may also encounter the problems due to low visibility in sites (e.g. firefighter) [29]. Therefore, the significance of indoor navigation systems lies not only in providing convenience to the common people (e.g. pedestrian navigation) [16], but also in aiding the disadvantage group (blind/partially sighted) in their daily life [1, 33]. Besides, it is meaningful for facilitating emergency rescues [29]. Regarding the question what makes a effective indoor navigation system, currently, many studies have found that indoor positioning technologies can bring improved navigation effectiveness and efficiency [16], and benefit the blind people [1, 33].

2.2 Indoor Positioning

A outdoor/indoor navigation system much include a basic form of localization - the determination of the location and/or orientation of a user [15]. Indoor positioning technologies make it possible to locate the users when they are indoors. But its accuracy remains to be a considerable challenge [7] for large scale deployment of indoor navigation systems [15]. Various approaches have been proposed to aid indoor positioning so far, with different levels of accuracy, practicality and reliability [7, 15]. 2.21 Dead-reckoning (Sensor-based positioning) Dead reckoning localization techniques normally make use of inertial sensors (such as accelerometers, compasses, gyroscopes, and etc) or a combination of them, to estimate a user's location based on a previously estimated or known position [15]. The initial position and orientation are required to be accurate, as the later estimations depend on them. An initial location typically relies on external source, such as Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags [34] and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) [16]. One drawback of the dead-reckoning lies in its inaccuracy, as the location estimation is a recursive process [15]. Any slight calculation error may result in big problem over time. Another cause of inaccuracy is the quality of the sensors, which determines the accuracy level and the cost. High accuracy system (e.g. foot mounted tracker [28])
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can provide reliable data for accumulation by measuring the gait of the user. But due to the comparatively low accuracy, dead reckoning methods are not suitable to be applied separately [7, 15]. Studies show a combination of dead reckoning and other localization techniques works more effectively in pedestrian navigation [16] and games [25]. In practice, prediction means in dead reckoning is commonly used to reduce the delays and losses induced by network [25]. 2.22 Direct sensing (Sensor-based positioning) Direct sensing methods locate the user through the sensing of identifiers or tags, which have been installed in the environment [15]. The relative information (e.g. location) may be stored in the identifier itself, or in a database from which the information can be retrieved by using a unique tag [15]. One tag is sufficient to provide the location information and tag reader is easily built in portable devices [33]. It is also possible to determine the orientation of the user according to the relative chang in location [33]. There are five common technologies based on the use of tags.

Radio Frequency Identier Description (RFID) - RFID tags can be active or passive [33]. Active ones contain battery and process signals itself, while the passive ones are powered by RFID reader, with less storage compared with the active tags. RFID tags are mostly installed on floors or walls. When deployed in large building, the installation cost will be expensive in spite of the cheap price of a single tag. Updating tags are effort consuming, for it cannot be done remotely. Cheap RFID tags have shorter ranges, probably resulting in low accessibility [31]. Another disadvantage is RF signals can be blocked by human body [1]. Infrared (IR) - IR systems are costly to install for the need of large amount of tags. Users use a IR receiver to receive the signals sent from IR transmitters. The nature of IR brings many technical difficulties. On the one hand, IR requires line of sight; On the other hand, IR is susceptible to natural and artificial lights [15]. Ultrasound identification (USID) - In practice, users carry a receiver on each shoulder and the emitters are installed in infrastructure [15]. The location and orientation of the user can be determined by the ultrasound signals received from the two closest emitters. But the signals are prone to be reflected or blocked by large solid objects (e.g. walls). In addition, line of sight is required. Bluetooth beacons - Bluetooth is widely equipped in handheld devices. Due to the device delay, users have to wait for the data updating. Greater number of beacons can increased the accuracy [19]. So it has the same drawback with RFID tags, costly when installed in large environment. Moreover, the power source needs to be maintained.

Barcodes - It is low cost and easy to install. The barcodes reader is available in most of the smart phones. Users can get location information by scanning the barcodes. But time and efforts are needed to find and scan the barcodes, which is inconvenient to the people with impaired vision.

2.23 Triangulation (Common algorithm for sensor-based positioning) Triangulation is one of the common algorithms for positioning. A little different from direct sensing methods, it utilizes multiple sets of signals (e.g. RFID, IR , and etc) of a same kind in known locations and calculates the users location or orientation [15, 30]. As its name implies, at least three points should be used to determine a position. Two variants exist for localization: lateration and angulation. Lateration measures users distances from other reference points (at least three points), whereas angulation measures the angles relative to these reference points (at least three) [15, 30].

Global Positioning System (GPS) - GPS applies a trilateration method to locate a user, based on the positions of satellites [2]. Nowadays, GPS has become the most popular aid for outdoor navigation, for its high reliability and low cost. The accuracy of different GPS can be three feet or better [2]. Handheld GPS systems typically determine the user orientation by using a compass. However, GPS cannot work properly indoors, as the signals can be blocked by solid objects (e.g. buildings, walls). Cell-tower Positioning and Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) Positioning Both of these two method apply triangulation to determine the location of a user. They can be used as aids for compensating or improving the weak GPS signals indoors [2, 12], or used separately. Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) is commonly used in wireless signal triangulation information to provide signal strength data for computing [27]. But they have lower accuracy in positioning, compared with GPS.

2.24 Pattern recognition Pattern recognition methods compare the data obtained from sensors with pre-mapped values in the database, thus inferring the location and orientation of the user [27].

Fingerprinting - It determines the users location by comparing the data sensed at a particular location with prerecorded data [15]. This technique requires a prepared environment which has been encoded in a way and stored in the database as a data map. When the user is navigating, the received signal is processed and compared with the prerecorded data. The closest match can indicate users location. Fingerprinting is mostly applied in WLAN positioning [15, 27], based on WIFI signals. Besides, other lost cost sensors (e.g. accelerometer, magnetometer, and etc) can also contribute in creating a map, in
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terms of different navigation tasks. And their combination may bring higher accuracy. Fingerprinting can help improve the accuracy of estimation results by other means and solve the multipath problem [27]. But creating a map based on various signals may be time-consuming and sometimes the reliability of the map cannot be guaranteed due to unstable factors (e.g. temperature based map).

Vision-based positioning - Camera is required in this kind of methods, to capture images of the environment of a location. Commonly most smart phones are equipped with cameras. The images are used to match the prestored images of the known locations, whereby users' position and orientation can be determined [21]. High storage capacity is required by a mass of images. In addition, poor computing ability of the hardware may cause more response time [30]. But embedding high-performance processor into handheld devices is still challenging at present.

2.3 User-centered Indoor Navigation System

Indoor navigation systems are meaningful for promoting ubiquitous computing in the our daily life [27, 31]. Recently, more and more research focus on designing and implementing indoor navigation systems for different tasks (based on the nature of tasks) and for different user groups (based on their characteristics and context) [1, 27, 29, 30]. Without doubt, the quality (e.g. accuracy) of indoor positioning technology affects the usability of indoor navigation systems to a large extent. But due to the instability of signals and hardware limitations, stand-along method may not be sufficient to insure a highly reliable system. Context-aware positioning is proposed to give solution to this problem, by selecting best positioning method in the context [30]. For example, when WIFI signals are not available, the system applies other sensors (e.g. gyroscope and accelerometer) to determine the users location instead. When WIFI comes back, the working mode switches to WIFI positioning again [30]. Many efforts have been made to improve the accuracy of indoor positioning technologies. However, some studies find the precise positioning is not always necessary, and more important is presenting users with available information in relation to their context [29]. Associating users with their context is an important thing which should be considered [29] in the development of an indoor navigation system . But how to represent the context to users (e.g. on 2D or 3D map [15]) is another issue in HCI domain. According to the HCI theories, a good interactive system should be enlightened by users requirements and their contexts [13]. To elicit user requirements, the potential user groups should be defined first. Commonly, people who may need indoor navigation systems are [7]:
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Everyday Navigators (Convenience user) - These users are the common people. They mostly use indoor navigation systems to aid their tour in large buildings, such as museums, galleries, exhibition halls, and etc. They are unlikely to use expensive or specialist equipment, as all they want is convenience. Location Based Gamers (Convenience user) - The requirement of equipment mainly depends on the type of games. Hardcore gamers may be willing to pay for costly devices, pursuing speed, accuracy and stability. Blind/Partially sighted (High end user) - This group of user have different levels of vision impairment. Indoor navigation systems designed for them should provide timely, safe, reliable help in their daily life, such as path planing [35]. Thus specialist equipment of high accuracy is required. But due to the various consumption levels, costly equipment cannot support large scale of deployment. Since this group of users are visually impaired, audio (e.g. speech) and haptic (e.g. haptic glove) means can be considered to promote better interaction [1, 15] . Surveyors (High end user) - Equipment of very high accuracy is needed in spite of the cost (if reasonable). But most sites may lack infrastructure. Emergency Responders (High end user) - Emergency rescues often require fast, accurate positioning, as the time and safety are critical. Extreme conditions may occur in emergency, such as in thick smog. So taking the techniques used for blind/partially sighted users into account is necessary.

Users characteristics and context of use give the firsthand requirements for indoor navigation systems. But these requirements are not sufficient for a sound system. In the development process, the system should be evaluated (find problems and extract more requirements) and redesigned (solve problems and meet requirements) several times, which is called iterative design [13].

3. METHOD 3.1 Participants

A sample of 24 students (16 male, 8 female) over 18 years old in the University of Nottingham participated in the user trial. None of them were informed of what technology would be used before the trial, and they had no any previous experience in the tasks neither.

3.2 Experimental Design

An experiment was performed to explore which kind of spatial representation and what orientation cues common users prefer to use when navigating indoors. The navigation effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction were examined with a prototype indoor navigation system which has three navigation modes. The system was tested in a Samsung Note1. Participants were asked to navigate through a maze which was 16*16m, set on the floor of a sports hall (Figure 1) in the experiment. As shown in Figure 2, there are four routes: red route (Route A), orange route (Route B), green route (Route C) and blue route (Route D). All the routes were of similar difficulty which was estimated by the turns and junctions.

Figure 1. The maze in sports hall

Figure 2. The map of the maze and four routes, replicated with authors consent [8]

In the experiment, participants did the training first to get used to the maze and then were given three navigation tasks. So each participant had to navigate all the four routes in the maze - one for training, the other three for tasks. For the training part,
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participants navigated a route (A, B, C, or D) without any navigation aid, only by sight. The prototype indoor navigation system was employed for navigation tasks. Each of the tasks was completed in one condition (with one navigation mode). There were three conditions in total. Condition one was Egocentric mode. In this mode, the map of the maze could rotate in four angles according the users orientation. Users followed the rotating map to find the way. Condition two was Allocentric mode. A static map was given and there was an arrow below the map indicating the users orientation. Users could use the arrow to find direction. Condition three was Baseline mode. Only a static map was given in this mode. Users navigated with their own direction sense. In order to conduct the user trials efficiently, 4 route variations (ABCD, BCDA, CDAB, DABC) were applied. In this way, the end of the previous route was the start point of the next route. As the training should always came first, 6 condition order variations could be (T123, T132, T213, T231, T312, T321). Therefore, there were 24 possible ways to run though the study in total. Covering all the variations once could get good counterbalancing. The arrangement of the user trials is shown in Appendix A.

3.3 Questionnaire Design

There were two types of questionnaires in this study (Appendix D and E). One was post-trial questionnaire, which was to be completed after each trial. SMEQ (Subjective Mental Effort Questionnaire) [36] was one part of this questionnaire. The SMEQ is a self-report questionnaire, which has been applied in various studies. It provides one carefully designed scale for the responder to rate the difficulty during a task. The score obtained from the scale represents users subjective assessment of mental workload. In the post-trial questionnaire, participants were asked to complete the SMEQ first. Then they got three open questions to comment the interface they just experienced. Participants were expected to give comments about the interface, in both helpful and unhelpful aspects, or others. Participants were asked to fill in the post-trial questionnaire when completing a task. The debriefing questionnaire was the second type, which aimed to examine users preference and their justification for the preference. The debriefing questionnaire was given to the participant when all three tasks were completed. Participants were asked to select their preferred mode and give reasons. They could also make any comment about the study, and gave suggestions.

3.4 Procedure
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All the participants were asked to sign up in the time slots before the trial day. Only one participant was invited in each time slot. Participants who came ahead of schedule were asked to have a seat and wait. Here participant No.1 was taken as an example to explain how the experiment was conducted. The participant came to the sports center as informed of. The experimenter asked the participant to sit down on a chair outside the sports hall (the trial field) and explained what would happen in the experiment. The participant confirmed there was no doubt or worry about the user trial and signed in a consent form. The experimenter gave the participant the information sheet if he/she wanted it and stressed that he/he was allowed to quit at any time. Then the participant followed the experimenter to the sports hall where the maze was set. The participant was asked to put the bag, watch, phone and any other electrical equipment aside. The experiment explained the reason and took the participant into the maze for training. The participant stood at the starting point of a certain route as instructed. For participant No.1, the training route was Route A (see Appendix A). In the training part, the participant navigated Route A in the maze without any navigation aids. The participant was not timed and he/she was given enough time to get used to the maze. In the meantime, the experimenter calibrated the system and got ready for the real trial. When the participant finished the training, the experimenter gave the first navigation task.

Figure 3. Training in progress

The participant stayed at the end point of Route A, which was the starting point of Route B. The experimenter introduced the device and the prototype indoor navigation system. The first trial for participant No.1 was egocentric mode, Route B (1B). The experimenter explained the interface and told the participant how to use the system. Making sure the participant was clear with everything, the experimenter told the
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participant You can start any time from now. The participant tapped the start button and began to navigate in the maze. The experimenter walked outside the maze and followed the participant behind, observing, taking notes but not making any sounds to disturb the trial. When the participant reached the end point, the experimenter checked the used time in the device and recorded it. The participant was then given a post-trial questionnaire to complete. After completing the questionnaire, the participant was asked to perform the next trial - allocentric mode, Route C (2C). The procedure was the same as the first trial. Each participant performed training and three trials. During each trial, the participant was timed and observed. At the end of each trial, participants were asked to completed a post-trial questionnaire which included SMEQ and three open questions asking about user experience. When the participant completed all the tasks and post-trial questionnaires, the experimenter sat down with him/she and answered his/her questions. The participant was allowed to experience all the navigation modes again. Confirming the participant could had known each mode clearly, the experimenter asked him/her to complete a debriefing questionnaire. After handing all the completed questionnaires to the experimenter and taking all personal belongings, the participant could leave the hall. The experimenter collected all the observation notes and the paper copies of questionnaires at the end of the whole experiment. The information and data got from the experiment were kept confidential and only used for analysis.

4. INTERFACE
In this section, the interface of the prototype indoor navigation system was shown and described. The prototype is not a real navigation system, but specially designed based the needs of the study. Figure 4 is the home page of the system. There are four options provided - Training, Egocentric Mode, Allocentric Mode and Baseline Mode. Each option has a different color, making the interface look colorful and interesting. Clear Data button can delete all the existing user data in the database. The system uses a database to store the completion time of the participants in case the experimenter fails to record the time unexpectedly.

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Figure 4. Home page

Figure 5. Training page

Tapping the red button Training, the training page appears (Figure 5). In this page, users can experience the three navigation modes together. All the four routes for tasks are provided. User can check the routes here. The chosen route and mode are highlighted with pink color. How these modes work are explained below separately. Figure 6 shows the default interface of egocentric mode. The chosen route is highlighted. When the user starts the trial, the Start button changes its text into testing and turns pink (Figure 7). In egocentric mode, the map would rotate in four angles (90, 180, 270, 360) according to the change of the users orientation. Tapping Task Completed button can jump back to the home page, and a message pop s up to notify the user his/her completion time for the task (Figure 8).

Figure 6. Egocentric mode by default (a)

Figure 7. Egocentric mode in use (b)

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Figure 8. The home page showing the completion time in egocentric mode (c)

Allocentric mode (Figure 9) and baseline mode (Figure 10) keep the consistent layout with Egocentric Mode. But there is a difference between them. Baseline mode only provides a static map, while allocentric mode has a direction arrow in addition to the static map. The arrow can give orientation cues to the user. It looks like a compass, but not actually working a like a compass.

Figure 9 Figure 10. Baseline mode with only a static map

Figure 10

Figure 9. Allocentric mode with a static map and a dynamic direction arrow

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5. IMPLEMENTATION
In this section, some key procedures and functions were introduced and explained. All the codes in this project are supported by Android Developer Official Website (http://developer.android.com/index.html).

5.1 Getting Started

This prototype indoor navigation system was implemented on android OS. The first thing was to download the Android Development Tools (ADT) from the android developer official website and install ADT in the PC. Java Run Environment (JRE) was essential for android programming. Therefore, for the PC without JRE, Java Development Kit (JDK) should be installed before running ADT. JRE would be installed automatically with the installation of JDK. JDK was available on the internet (e.g. http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html). After setting the environment variables in the PC properly, ADT can run without problem. An android application project were be created before coding. Activities are the key components of the project. As shown in INTERFACE part, there were five pages in the system - home page, training page, egocentric mode, allocentric mode and baseline mode. Each page was controlled by an activity, in which widgets (button, image, text, etc) were defined and functions implemented. But the layouts of the pages were store in XML files separately. Therefore, five activities were be created in five Java files (see Appendix G(a)), and linked with corresponding XML files (see Appendix G(b)).

5.2 Orientation Sensor

The orientation sensor was used in both the egocentric and allocentric modes. Its application was the most important part of the prototype system, which influenced the rotation of the map and the arrow. For most of the android smart phones and tablets, the orientation sensor is embedded. For easier programming, android provides a common interface to invoke different sensors in the codes. To apply the orientation sensor, the sensor manager should be defined and obtained first. The sensor listener was used to catch the target event and made responds. Related operations were coded in onSensorChanged () method. The key codes are as below.

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The orientation sensor is one of the position sensors provided by the android platform. It returns multi-dimensional arrays of sensor values (Azimuth/yaw, pitch, and roll) during a single event [17]. Azimuth= event.values[0]; (value: 0 to 359) Pitch= event.values[1]; (value: -180 to 180) Roll= event.values[2]; (value: -90 to 90) Azimuth - degrees of rotation around the z axis pitch - degrees of rotation around the x axis roll - degrees of rotation around the y axis Azimuth is the angle between the magnetic north direction and the y-axis, around the z-axis (0 to 359). 0=North, 90=East, 180=South, 270=West [17]. Only the value of azimuth was needed when implementing compass function in the code. Thus the descriptions below are more about the azimuth. More information about the axises, pitch and roll can be accessed in android official website. The values of azimuth, pitch and roll are 0, when the device is laid horizontally, pointing to the north. The value of azimuth would change from 0 to 359 as the orientation of the device head changes horizontally. Therefore, participants were asked to hold the device horizontally in the tasks and by this way could their orientation be detected more precisely.

5.21 Egocentric mode In this mode, the map could rotate in four angles (90, 180, 270, 360) (Figure 11) when the users orientation changed to a certain direction. The map was not rescaled.

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Figure 11. A map presented in four angles (S: start, E: end)

The code below explains how to achieve the rotation function. Animation was used to make the map rotate smoothly. The most import were the first two parameters of RotateAnimation - fromDegrees (variable predegree in the code) and toDegrees (variable degree). Literally, the map would rotate from predegree to degree. The final orientation of the map was determined by degree. And degree had only four values - 0, 90, 180 and 270. The value of degree should be judged and assigned every time before the animation. Figure 12 shows how to divide the environment around the user into four areas (Figure 12). The first area was from -45 to 45. When the current value of degree (user s current orientation) fell into this area, its value was assigned 0. The details are presented in the code (Appendix G(c)).

Figure 12. When user s orientation falls into Area 1, assign 0 to the value of degree

Another thing to be noticed was the map should rotate in the opposite direction when the user changed his orientation. For instance, if the user turned in left, the map
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should rotate in right. Otherwise, the user could not navigate through the maze correctly with the map. This is the reason why the last line of the code was predegree = - degree. 5.22 Allocentric mode Compared with egocentric mode, this mode kept the map static and applied an arrow to indicate users orientation. Allocentric mode applied the RotateAnimation() to control the rotation of the arrow as well. The arrow could rotate 360 degrees, so there is no need to assign a specific value to the degree. Normally, the degrees the arrow rotated was the value of the azimuth . The key code is in Appendix G(d).

5.3 Calibration
Due to the unspecified orientation of the maze, unstable magnetic field and other environmental factors, there was need to do calibration in both egocentric and allocentric modes before each trial. Here takes allocentric mode as example. Theoretically, when the user held the device horizontally, keeping its head pointing to the north, the parameter degree used in RotateAnimation() was 0. But the real situation was not always a coincidence. For Route A, when the user stood at the starting point (S), facing to the end point (E) and holding the device as instructed, the value of degree might be 30 which meant the device did not point to the north. Thus the arrow in allocentric mode pointed to 30 degrees diverted from the right front (Figure 13a). In order to make the arrow point to the front, the offset degree should be eliminated.

(a)

(b)

Figure 13. The arrow before calibration (a) and after calibration (b)

When degree was 0, the arrow would appear as that in Figure 13b. But the real value was 30 . Therefore, 30 as the offset should be subtracted. The code below shows how to reduce the offset, which is defined as 30 (int OFFSET = 30).

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It was not sure that where the arrow would point under the influence of complex factors. When the arrow shifted to the right, the offset value was a positive number. If to the left, the value should be negative.

5.4 Timer
A timer was embedded in the system to allow the users to control their starting time themselves. When the user got ready and tapped the start button, the timer began to work. Tapping the start button would call the onStartTimer() function. In this function, a new countdown timer was be created first. onTick() was an inner method for the countdown timer, invoked when the timer started. The only parameter for onTick() was milisUntilFinished. So the elapsed time would be total time minus milisUntilFinished (the time the user used to complete the task). 900 in the code below meant 900 seconds. It means 15 minutes was set as the maximum time to complete a single task. The time was measured by millisecond, thus the result should be divided by 1000.

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When the user completed a task, tapping Task Completed button would call onTaskComplete() function and cancel the timer. The system printed the variable timeElapsed on the screen at the same time.

6. QUANTITATIVE RESULTS AND FINDINGS

This section presents the numeric data obtained from the experiment, including users completion time for each task, difficulty scores (obtained from SMEQ) and user preference. Some simple findings are also described based on the analysis of the raw data. Figure 14 illustrates how difficult participants thought to complete a task with each mode. The median difficulty score was 30 for egocentric mode (with rotating map), 30 for allocentric mode (with direction arrow and a static map) and 20 for baseline mode (with a static map only). A Friedman test (non-parametric test for within-subjects experiment) was performed in SPSS (a software for data processing, widely used in statistics) to examine the experimental results. A significant difference was revealed at p<0.05 (N=24, df=2, Chi2 =11.523), indicating the three navigation modes differed in difficulty level. As shown in Figure 15, the egocentric mode was considered to be the most difficult (mean=43.75), followed with allocentric mode (mean=38.33) and baseline mode (mean=22.5).

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Figure 14. Median and inter-quartile ranges of difficulty scores for each mode, as marked by the users

Figure 15. Mean difficulty scores of each mode

Figure 16 shows the comparison of the mean completion time of each mode. The standard deviation mentioned below were transcribed from the descriptive data table generated by SPSS (raw data in Appendix B). Participants used more time to complete a task with egocentric mode (mean=57.5s, SD=18.33), compared with the other two modes - allocentric (mean=50s, SD=16.65) and baseline (mean=41s, SD=18.71). Baseline mode was the most time-saving way as presented in the chart. Repeated measures ANOVA (parametric test for within-subjects experiment) revealed that the difference in completion time between the three navigation modes was significant (F=4.903, df=2, 46, p<0.05).
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Figure 16. Mean task completion time with each mode

In order to counterbalance the effect of routes, the participants were asked to navigate on different routes in random order. However, some routes appeared to be more efficient. Due to different abilities of individuals, the efficiency of a route cannot be measured by the mean task completion time on the route. For example, one participant may use 100 seconds on Route A, which was the least time he/she used in all the tasks. But 50 seconds may the longest time another person spent in a task on Route B. So it was more reasonable to count the most efficient route to each participant.

Figure 17. How many times each route becomes the most efficient route to a user

Figure 17 shows the times each route was employed when the participant used the least completion time for a task, regardless of the navigation modes. Route A appeared to be the most efficient route (times=9) according to the bar chart. Route D
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(times=8) and B (times=6) followed. What to note was that the frequency of Route C (times=3) was the lowest, much lower than A. Figure 18 illustrates the popularity of the three different navigation modes. 10 out of 24 participants preferred baseline mode. 8 participants chose egocentric mode as their preference and 6 people selected allocentric mode. But there was no big different between the number of these three groups. Thus it was hard to conclude which mode is the most popular.

Figure 18. Times of each mode being chosen as preference by the users

The relationship between user preference and the efficiency of navigation modes was found interesting in this study. In general, most of the people like the most efficient way. However, in this experiment, not all the participants preferred the easiest way. This finding was significantly embodied in baseline mode. Only half of 16 participants who thought baseline mode was the easiest chose baseline mode as their preference. Based on the outcomes, the most efficient mode was found insufficient to meet users needs.

7. QUALITATIVE RESULTS AND FINDINGS

In this section, non-numerical data are analyzed and collated, which include responses to post-trial and debriefing questionnaires, and observations of the experimenter. Findings from the analysis are interpreted and discussed. All the quotations of user comments are elicited from Appendix F. Thematic analysis was used to process the qualitative data. It is a widely used method for identifying and reporting themes from data [6]. The process of thematic analysis refers to encoding the information. And the code will be a list of themes [5]. A theme should describe the observations minimally or interpret the maximum aspects of a phenomenon [5].
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Several themes were found from the raw data. The minor themes were about the size and complexity of the maze, and the interferential conditions of the experiment site. They could provide useful advice for creating a better experiment environment, but the design of the maze was beyond the scope of the study. The most significant themes are described below, which were elicited from the user comments and behaviour (observed by the experimenter).

7.1 The Need of Clear Map and Route

Participants were asked to report the helpful aspects of different navigation modes after trials. For each mode, there were a few participants saying the map/route was clear. The route is clear. - Participant 2 The route is clear. It gave me confidence to complete the task. The map is fixed and the route is clear. - Participant 8 Clear map and route. - Participant 16

- Participant 3

Some participants reported the it was helpful to mark the start and destination on the map. Clear map with start point and end point. Clear end point. - Participant 19 - Participant 15

Arrows on the map were popular among many participants. Arrows on the map helped me to identify my direction. - Participant 7 Clear route and the arrows on the map are very useful. - Participant 15 I think the arrows on the map are helpful to understand the path. - Participant 24 Maps with the same style but with different route were used in the trials. Participants responses stressed the importance of clear map and routes in navigation. Their comments suggested that how a clear map with clear route should be. First of all, the map should match the real environment. Highlighting the boundaries and obstacles were very important when the use was matching the map with the environment. Thus it was necessary to show as many details on the map as possible. And the routes would be clearer on a correct map. Otherwise the map was considered unhelpful. I think the map is a little different from the real maze. - Participant 2 The map is confusing. - Participant 9 I did not understand the map until i looked at the map again. A little confused in the
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beginning.

- Participant 24

Secondly, the user needed to know which direction they should go when navigating in the field. It was possible that user got confused with the starting point and end point on half way. The destination and the arrows on the map could help users identify the correct direction. 5 participants got totally confused on half way in the maze, and then they went back to the starting point and tried again. The cause of this phenomenon lay not only in the confusing map/route, but also in lack of hints indicating users current location. Thus providing clear, sufficient location information to the user was important for indoor navigation. Thirdly, the orientation of the map should be adjusted by the user. According to the observations, 14 participants turned the device as a map in baseline mode. They seemed to be matching the map to the real maze. Another thing to note was that 7 participants got to the wrong end point on Route C. But this situation did not occurred with Route A, B or D. It was supposed that the presentation of the map may affect users thinking and decision making.

Figure 19. The comparison of maps with Route A and C

Figure 19 illustrates how Route A and C were presented to the users in the experiment. The red route was Route A, and the green one was C. For Route A, when the user stood at the starting point (S), facing to the end point, the correct path was right in the front which made the route easy to follow. As for Route C, the orientation of the user and the map were just opposite. Turning left on the map meant turning right in the real maze. Time was required to think and react, and the user may make mistakes when determining which way to turn in. Therefore, it may help more if the system allowed the user to set the map as they thought easy to read and follow. The last thing was the flexible size of the map. Some participant asked for a bigger map. Viewing an image in full-screen size may be one of the user habits, but larger size map could make the it clearer and easier to read indeed, especially for the people
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with impaired or declined vision and those who had weak recognition capability (feeling hard to locate themselves when everything looks smaller in a map). I prefer to view the map in full screen. - Participant 16 The map can be larger. - Participant 17 A clear map with clear route could definitely help in navigation, but some participants though that was not enough to support indoor navigation.

7.2 The Need of Real-time Positioning with Orientation

More than half of the participants asked why no real-time positioning service provided. When completing the questionnaires, they commented that real-time positioning technology should be introduced to the navigation system. No GPS. I like GPS. - Participant 1 GPS needed. - Participant 3 It is better to have a point to show where the user is. - Participant 11 I do not know where am i in the map. - Participant 16 It could be better to provide location of the user. - Participant 18 Hard to find where i was. - Participant 20 Most of the participants owned smart phones and they had experience in using GPS (Global Position System) in Google Map. Some of them did not know GPS cannot work properly indoors. But from their comments, real-time positioning was found in urgent need for indoor navigation. Without knowing current location, users had to compare the map with the real environment and reckon their location. Users also needed to remember their last location in case of getting lost. The introduction of real-time positioning technology may help to reduce users memory workload and save many of their efforts in making decision. However, merely showing the location information may not satisfy the users navigating indoors. A few participants reported that the direction arrow in allocentric mode was useful for their navigating in the maze. The arrow is helpful to confirm the direction. - Participant 2 The compass is helpful. - Participant 4 The arrow showing the direction is helpful. - Participant 11 The arrow followed my turning around precisely. - Participant 12 The pointer can tell me do i face to the correct direction. - Participant 16 The arrow give you the sense of direction. - Participant 21 The red arrow was very helpful and i have not been confused like in the previous
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trials.

- Participant 23

It was suggested by some participants that a combination of the map and the arrow would a better choice. Because a person could only focus on one thing at a time. Separate functional tools may distract users attention and interfere their thinking. I have to match the orientation of the red arrow with the arrows on the map. - Participant 15 I need to see the map and the pointer at the same time. How about combine the function of map and pointer together. - Participant 16 I was paying more attention to the arrow. But i found it difficult to use the map and the arrow at the same time. - Participant 24 Considering the user comments above, the ideal real-time positioning service should provide both accurate location and orientation of the user synchronously, as one participant mentioned: In Google map, the direction arrow is helpful because it can locate users position. - Participant 5 Ideally, real-time positioning with orientation cues could show users their current location and orientation synchronously, leading them to the correct route. In fact, some errors were inevitable or occurred unexpectedly in most of the systems. But the users did not expect any error.

7.3 The Need of Accuracy and Stability

The accuracy and stability seemed to be the biggest problems in the prototype system. Participants complaint about the unstable rotating map in egocentric mode, and the inaccurate direction arrow in allocentric mode. Egocentric The orientation kept changing. Very confusing. - Participant 1 Making the changes of map more stable and accurate will be more helpful. - Participant 3 The map changed fast. - Participant 4 The map shaked sometimes. - Participant 9 The map changed automatically sometimes. - Participant 17 Allocentric
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There was some errors with my orientation. - Participant 2 Errors disturbed my decision sometimes. - Participant 4 It sometimes did not point to the right direction. - Participant 6 The arrow was so sensitive that it took some time to point to the right direction. - Participant 12 The arrow should be calibrated many times. - Participant 17

Lack of accuracy and stability reduced usability and reliability of a system or product. Users were sensitive to the errors. They rejected to use the system once it was found unreliable or hard to handle with. The arrow does not make any sense. I just followed the map. - Participant 1 I would rather follow the static map. - Participant 2 I doubt that i would use it the second time. - Participant 12 This did not work for me. - Participant 20 Some participants chose baseline mode as their preference, considering this static mode was more stable than the other two. This phenomenon implied that users preferred not using anything dynamic unless it was reliable. None of the participants could continuously hold the device horizontally or keep the device pointing to their right front as instructed. When the device provided inaccurate indication, they tended to rock the device or turn it, which made the system less stable. But the participants were not to blame. The system was too susceptible to the external factors, which to some extent indicated the technology used in the system was immature or inapplicable. More efforts should be taken to keep the system working effectively. Improving the accuracy and stability was meaningful in the development of an indoor navigation system. They were considered as core factors influencing the reliability of the system. However, reliability was not the only thing affecting user acceptance and satisfaction.

7.4 The Importance of Ease of Use

The ease of use referred to easy to learn and easy to remember, which was an important index for evaluating the usability of a system [24]. In this study, participants were asked to complete tasks with three navigation modes provided by the prototype system. No time was given for them to get familiar with each mode before the trials. They learned how to use each mode while they were
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performing the tasks. Under the pressure of being timed, participants tried to get used to the system as quickly as they could. In this condition, it was easy to find which mode was easier to use. Some of the participants reported they preferred an easy way. Easy to use and not confusing. - Participant 16 In this mode, i feel quite easier to find the way. - Participant 18 It is the easiest way. - Participant 23 Some inconvenient aspects were found from the user comments. It suggested that users expected to follow a intuitional mode in which they had no need to spend time and energy in thinking. And i needed time to react. - Participant 2 I need to rotate the map by myself. - Participant 8 I have to match the orientation of the red arrow with the arrows on the map. - Participant 15 Once the map changed , i have to re-understand the map. - Participant 16 And i found it difficult to use the map and the arrow at the same time. - Participant 24 There were 4 participants asking the experimenter to explain how the modes worked after the trials. They looked confused even though they had completed the tasks successfully. They mentioned more about the disadvantages of the system, but not commenting on their abilities. For example, they preferred to say The arrow was very confusing rather then I cannot understand the arrow. The interesting thing was they did not choose to leave, pretending they knew everything, but stayed and asked for explanation. Self-esteem was reflected in this phenomenon. They may get frustrated when seeing others using the system successfully. They doubted their capability but did not admit it. They were keen to prove their capability, but also curious about the truth. To get a balance in mind, they were likely to blame the system after knowing what they wanted. There might be some participants leaving without knowing how each navigation mode worked. However, no evidence was found. A system might be powerful and multifunctional, but for the users who did not know how to use it, it was useless. And users were less likely to use the system again once the system was found difficult to handle. What is worse, users might get confused, frustrated, or even suspicious of their capability. On the contrary, an easy-to-use system may give user confidence and bring good mood. Therefore, the ease of use should be carefully considered when designing an interactive system.

7.5 Confidence and Initiative

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6 participants (male) commented that the maze was too small and should be more complicated. 3 participants (male) said it was easier to go through by sight. They did not depend on the device too much when they were doing the tasks. It seemed that male participants had more confidence in navigation tasks than the female. But the participants who showed great confidence did not appear to have much better performance (judged by the completion time) than the others. Below are some comments about baseline mode, indicating the confidence of the participants. Baseline But it was easier for me to go through the maze by sight. Because for easy route, relying on the app slowed my speed down. - Participant 2 Easier to follow the route by sight. I almost did not look at the device. - Participant 5 Good to follow my instinct. - Participant 10 I am very good at reading and understanding maps... - Participant 14 Familiar with this mode. Just like a map. - Participant 15 The concept of initiative was introduced to emphasize the leading role of the user in user - system interaction. Users should be give the freedom to choose what they liked or wanted. In this experiment, participants were asked to experience three navigation modes which were set by the experimenter. Participants had no access to controlling the system because the static elements were fixed and the dynamic ones worked automatically. They had no choice but tolerate the situation they may not like. For instance, participants could not get ride of the rotating map in egocentric mode, even though they found it confusing and annoying. Hope the map can be rotated manually... - Participant 13

Some people thought they had very good sense of direction but it might be opposite in fact. When they considered one simple map was sufficient, they did not want any other aids even though these aids may help in navigation. As found in quantitative result, some participant did not preferred the most efficient way. It was implied that some people liked to navigate in their own way. They did not hurry in finding the destination, because in most cases, navigation was not a task or a competition. Based on the findings, an indoor navigation system should provide selectable navigation aids, allowing users to create their own navigation mode. Thus users with confidence in their navigation ability could enjoyed the interaction with the system. However, there were also some people lacking of direction-sense in our life. Their requirements were found different.

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7.6 The Need of Guide

Even though many participants preferred baseline mode, many comments indicated more hints should be given in addition to the static map. Baseline Better to embed a compass in it. - Participant 6 No hint of users current orientation. - Participant 11 No navigation aid. - Participant 18 I wish it could indicate some guid for me. - Participant 19 No direction indication made it hard to find the way. - Participant 21 3 participants (female) told the experimenter they had bad direction sense before the trials. But their performance was not worse than the others. They did not choose baseline mode as their preference. 4 participants kept their eyes on the screen all the way in the tasks, not even raised their head. They focused too much on the system that they did not notice they stepped on the edge lines in the maze. If the maze consisted of hard materials, they may have got hurt. It was found that people lacking of direction-sense or confidence depended more on the navigation system. They expected the system told them everything, avoiding making decision themselves. ...because i did not know how far i should go ahead. - Participant 12 When the map changed, it should tell i should turn left or right. - Participant 16 And audio guide would be considered. - Participant 13 I wish the map ...with audio guide. - Participant 19 A predictive navigation system was found necessary. Two participants hoped that audio guide could be employed. Audio guide was a good suggestion, but the accuracy of the guide was very essential, as its potential users may rely too much on it. For safety, on one hand, the audio guide should lead the user to the destination effectively; on the other hand, it should warn the user of dangerous position (wall, door, and etc).

8. REDESIGN
In this section, new interface of the indoor navigation system is introduced. Some technical issues are addressed and a few usability problems about the interface are presented after evaluation.

8.1 Interface and Justification

According to the findings from quantitative and qualitative results, a good indoor
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navigation system should be user-centered, meeting the requirements of the users. In addition, the importance of usability is emphasized, which is referred to easy to learn, efficient to use, easy to remember, few error and subjectively pleasing [24]. A complicated interface may be considered unuseful, as it is too difficult to handle with by the user. Likewise, a powerful and multipurpose system may be named useless as well, since the user has no requirements for these functions. In order to improve the usability of a system and satisfy the users, the first thing is to elicit user requirements and tried to meet them to the maximum extent. The new indoor navigation system is a low-fidelity prototype. It has not been developed as a functional application at the stage, due to limited resource and technical difficulties. It is a refined version of the prototype employed in the experiment. Its enhanced interface was designed based on the findings from the experiment results, aiming at better supporting users in indoor navigation. Figure 20 shows the default interface of the system. The default mode is like baseline mode, which only provides a static map. The yellow star on the map highlights the destination. Even though some users have confidence in their direction sense and navigation ability, a clear map is always necessary for navigation in new fields. It is found from the experiment results that static elements are considered safe, reliable and easy to handle with. Users may feel comfortable with the static mode, since they are not pushed to get used to dynamic elements at the beginning.

Figure 20. Default interface with a static map

Figure 21. Map in full-screen size

If the static map is thought insufficient to support navigating, users can choose to apply navigation aids - Location , Orientation or Guide by tapping their icons.
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Particularly, the Guide function can coexist with either of the other two functions. In previous experiment, users did not care which navigation mode they were using. Some even had no idea about the meaning of egocentric, allocentric and baseline. Enlightened by this finding, the new prototype combines the icons and specific function names to help users understand the system. All the functions can be disabled by a second tap, once they are found unhelpful. Users are free to add or remove navigation aids in this system, creating their preferred navigation mode. Giving the user access to customize the system can facilitate better interaction between human and the system. There are more things user can control, like rotating and enlarging the map manually, by tapping the corresponding buttons below the map. Users can rotate the map themselves to fit the their current orientation. The map can be enlarged to full-screen size (Figure 21). Tapping the button at top-right conner would make the map back to normal size. These requirements were obtained from the user comments. Given different modes to choose, users may get confused and time is need to get used to all the them. In addition, failure in using a system smoothly may cause frustration and dissatisfaction. Therefore, an accessible but effective system is required. As introduced, the resigned prototype system has one basic mode, base on which users can add or remove different navigation aids. Baseline mode and allocentric mode can be seen in the prototype. Adding or removing functions can be considered a transition in different navigation modes. But egocentric mode in previous prototype is not embedded in, because the dynamic map is the biggest unstable element. If the arrow malfunctions, users can still use the map. But if the map malfunctions, it becomes hard to find the way. Besides, even though the map works properly, users still have to spend time in re-understanding the map, which makes the navigation less efficient. The default mode doe not employ any positioning technology, as it may waste the battery power. So it is better to apply it when the use needs it. Location button is highlighted when tapped (Figure 22). Then real-time positioning service is added. The importance of positioning for indoor navigation was underlined in the previous experiment. And this positioning function was suggested by many participants. With the Location function, users location is marked with an blue icon on the map synchronously. The Orientation function provides both real-time positioning and orientation services. The blue arrow on the map rotates and moves to show users current orientation and location (Figure 23). The addition of orientation can better facilitate the users in matching the map to the environment. Either Location or Orientation function can work when the map is in full-screen size.

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Figure 22

Figure 23

Figure 22. The Location function (with real-time positioning) Figure 23. The Orientation function (with real-time positioning and orientation hint)

Audio guide (the Guide function) is employed as the third navigation aid. It appears to a helpful tool for the users with impaired or declined vision. It also provides a lazy mode for the people with week direction-sense. The audio guide is supposed to be able to tell how far the user is to the next turn, turning left or right at a turn, and whether the user is close to a unsafe area. The loudspeaker icon at the top left corner allows users to adjust the volume, in case some users have impaired hearing.

8.2 Technical Issues

According to the user comments in the experiment, users preferred a stable, accurate navigate system. Stability and accuracy were regarded as the most important factors affecting usability and acceptability of the previous system, based on the qualitative results. Orientation sensor is mostly applied in compasses built in portable devices. The compass makes use of magnetic field, showing the direction of geomagnetic north pole. People using a compass are able to know how much their current orientation diverts from the north. In order to make the compass effective for indoor navigation, one way is to present the map in a specific angle as a printed map (allocentric map), up-North, down-South, left-West, right-East. However, the plane figure of most of the buildings are of regular shapes, such as square, rectangular and etc. And the orientation of the buildings may
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not be right north-south or west-east. When presented as up-North, the map has to be rotated to fit the specific orientation, which may look strange. Below are the comparison of normal map (Figure 24) and rotated map for matching the compass (Figure 25).

Figure 24. The map presented normally

Figure 25. The map presented as up-North

Another way to combine the compass and the map is the method used in the previous prototype. The map is kept in normal angel, but the compass points to the north no longer. The compass should be calibrated to fit the orientation of the map. This way appears to better, as in the user trials, users paid little attention to the North. They cared more about whether they were in the correct direction, if not, how could they get to the right way. The details of calibration were given in IMPLEMENTATION part - Calibration. However, The experiment outcomes reveal the orientation sensor was imperfect for providing accurate, stable orientation cues indoors. The accuracy and stability of the system could not be guaranteed. Magnetic field is universal and very susceptible to the complex environment, especial indoors. Any electrical equipment can generate magnetic fields, the size of which depends on the current size. Magnetic fields can affect each other, resulting in errors in the data received by the sensor. Therefore, sensors based on the use of magnetic field cannot generate orientation information of high reliability in real case. Except for the orientation sensor, the other existing sensors embedded in portable devices have not proved to be effective in detecting user s orientation. New technology may be the solution, but not explored in this study. GPS provides convenient real-time positioning service outdoors. It is widely used in Google map and various outdoor navigation systems. Users who own smart phones are familiar with GPS. That is why some participants suggested to apply real-time positioning in the previous prototype system. However, GPS does not worked effectively indoors. As introduced in INDOOR NAVIGATION AND HCI part, indoor positioning is possible by using dead-reckoning, direct sensing, or pattern recognition techniques. And some indoor positioning technologies are able to provide orientation cues. Below is a brief assumption of the solution concerning this study. A tracker is
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considered to be embedded into portable devices. The communication of the tracker and the environment can be relied on ground based signals (e.g. WiFi) [4], or if possible, the pseudolites [10]. When the user moves, the tracker generates relevant data. A software is built to receive and analyze the data. Then the processed data are presented as a dot (or other icons) on the map, showing the location of the user. The real-time positioning data are useful for implementing audio guide, which is supposed to tell the user how far the destination is, turn left or right, and etc. In this case, the route should also be encoded and stored in the form of data. By comparing the data of users location and the route, it is possible to know how to guide the user getting to the right way. The assumptions above may just be feasible theoretically as far. Even if all the conditions allow, hug data and complex calculation are needed to achieve the goal. The implementation of indoor positioning has not been managed in this study.

8.3 Focus Group and Results

A simple focus group was conducted to evaluate the usability of the redesigned prototype, by collecting feedback and comments from the users. A focus group is a way to gain qualitative information about user views and experience, which involves organized discussions led by a moderator with a selected group of individuals [22]. 5 people were invited to sit down on a round table together in an empty room and discuss how they think about the new prototype. 2 of them had participated in the user trials, with experience of using the previous prototype. The moderator introduced the background of the study and the procedures. Confirming all the participants had known the procedures clearly, the moderator showed the interface to all the people and explained the presumed functions of the prototype. Then the moderator led the participants into discussion and took notes of user comments. There were 3 questions prepared. 1. What aspect do you think helpful or unhelpful in the interface? 2. What do you think of the functions provided? 3. Any other comments about the interface or the functions? All the participants agreed the interface was simple, clear and easy to use. 3 of them mentioned the icon of loudspeaker at the top-left corner was confusing (Figure 26). They thought it better to add a slide bar beside the loudspeaker, hinting the users they can adjust the volume here. The right icon below the map, which could enlarge the map to full-screen size, was considered confusing as well. It was suggested to replace it with another more symbolic icon. 2 participants said it would be clearer to set Guide as Audio Guide, thus users knew which kind of guide the system was
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providing. One participant expected the interface can be more aesthetical.

Figure 26. The resigned interface

Regarding the functions, one participant said Location functions was unnecessary since the Orientation function had real-time positioning as well. But the other four thought it reasonable to separate these two function, with consideration of user preference and effective use of battery and memory. There was no special function the participants wanted to add into the prototype. But they were curious about how the existing functions were implemented and how accurate the information would be. One participant asked whether the map would be changed when the user entered another exhibition hall, assuming the system was applied in a museum. Due to the technical difficulties, the navigation effectiveness and efficiency of the prototype could not be accessed. But several usability problems of the interface were found from the results. User comments suggested the prototype could be improved by making the icons more graspable and providing more description about the functions.

9. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The experiment results reveal that egocentric and allocentric mode do not have better navigation effectiveness and efficiency than baseline mode. And there was no accordant user preference for egocentric representation or allocentric representation. Quantitative data indicate allocentric mode was more efficient than egocentric mode. This may result from limited sample of the participants, or the difference of individual abilities. Another cause may be user previous experience and proficiency in allocentric representations, as most of maps are allocentric, in north-up direction. The nature of the tasks appears to be a possible factor influencing the result, as previous
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research suggests that the choice to represent the space in egocentric or allocentric frame depends on the nature of the task [37]. Different frames of reference are expected to adopted to suite the needs of different tasks [11]. Therefore, an effective indoor navigation system should make use of both egocentric and allocentric reference frames to facilitate users in various navigation tasks. The map appears to be the most importance thing in an indoor navigation system. According to the findings, precise, clear, detailed map is ideal for the users. In order to help users match the map with their contexts, landmarks can be used on the map, highlighting the obvious objects [15]. The initial orientation of the map seems to have an impact on users understanding of the map of a new environment, as the observations in the experiment reveal that users prefer to adjust the map to fit their current orientation at the very beginning. In terms of the finding, the navigation system could be more helpful by adjusting the map to fit user s orientation automatically when the user steps into a new room. It is found from the user comments that an accurate, stable system is more acceptable and efficient. This finding is also supported by the quantitative data. Most of the participants preferred the baseline mode and the mean completion time in baseline mode was the least. However, this phenomenon cannot reflect how helpful baseline mode is, but mainly underlined the importance of accuracy and stability for an indoor navigation system. The concept of usability also emphasizes that a useful system should be efficient to use, with few errors [24]. Thus the technology applied in the system should be stable and able to provide reliable information. Ease of use, which is another aspect of usability, has proved to be as important as accuracy and stability. Unreliable data are fatal, and the interaction difficulties users encounter can put the system at risk. A system is probably regarded as useless, when the user has no idea about how to deal with it. Moreover, Failure in applying a system properly can cause frustration and resistance. These have been reflected in the experiment - some users gave up using the system when feeling very confused. The problems of ease of use lie more in the interface, with which users interact directly. Thus more efforts should be made in designing a clear, graspable interface. For example, the icons used in the interface should be symbolic, reminding the user of its function, but not leading to guess. To improve the usability of a system, user habits cannot be overlooked. Many user requirements found in the qualitative data, regarding the interface and functions, are in relation to the user habits. User habits are embodied either in simple functions (such as viewing the map in full-screen size) or sophisticated ones (e.g. positioning). Real-time positioning was suggested by most of the participants in the experiment, since they were familiar with GPS and good at using it. The phenomenon reflects
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people are more likely to depend on the technology they get used to, and expect to extend its use to other situations. Therefore, user habits should be taken into consideration when design an indoor navigation system. The impact of user confidence in indoor navigation task is highlighted in this study. People with great confidence in their capabilities are more likely to depend on themselves. They are proud of their skills and enjoy the process of navigating on their own. Successful navigation can give them confidence in return. On the contrary, there exist some people with less confidence in navigating by themselves. These people expect an highly intelligent system, which can lead them to the destination directly without asking for their decisions. In order to meet the needs and capability of a wide rang of users, universal/inclusive design should be taken into consideration [37]. The indoor navigation systems should provide either flexible mode for confident people, or intelligent mode for the less competent people. Particularly, intelligent systems may lead to low situation awareness (SA), since the people probably concentrate too much on watching or listening to the system. SA is one being aware of what is happening around him/her and understanding what the current situation means to him/her and in the future [14]. Low situation awareness may put the user into danger (e.g. falling off from stairs). Therefore, for preventing unnecessary injuries, indoor navigation systems should provide more accurate and detailed navigational information, such as warning the user there is a stair in front. In conclusion, for the users, the reliability and ease of use are a priority for choosing an indoor navigation system. Technically, the system should be accurate and stable. As for the interface, it should first be easy to use. Regarding spatial representations or orientation cues, the user preference varies, possibly due to the individual differences. But it is inferred that a combination of spatial representations and orientation cues may bring better navigation effectiveness. Some more detailed requirements for indoor navigation systems are also found in this study. Firstly, high quality maps are needed. Secondly, user habits should be considered when designing a system. Thirdly, universal design is required by different users with varying capabilities and confidence levels. Fourthly, reliable indoor positioning technologies are expected to apply. In future work, despite the technical difficulties in indoor positioning, more attention should also be drawn to the interface design with consideration about the user requirements and their contexts, as a good interactive system is user-centered, not technology-centered [14]. This study mainly focus on studying the common users, but concerning little about the disadvantaged groups (such as blind/partially sighted people) and any other user groups (e.g. emergency responders). So the future research will also go into these groups and unearth their requirements.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Many thanks are to my supervisor - Michael Brown, for offering great help of all aspects to my project. Thanks also go to James Pinchin who is the partner of my supervisor, providing some technical support in my study. At last, I thank the Horizon Digital Economy Research in University of Nottingham, for giving me opportunity and convenience to go about the research.

REFERENCE
[1] Amemiya, T., Yamashita, J., Hirota, K., & Hirose, M. (2004, March). Virtual leading blocks for the deaf-blind: A real-time way-finder by verbal-nonverbal hybrid interface and high-density RFID tag space. In Virtual Reality, 2004. Proceedings. IEEE (pp. 165-287). IEEE. [2] Bajaj, R., Ranaweera, S. L., & Agrawal, D. P. (2002). GPS: location-tracking technology. Computer, 35(4), 92-94. [3] Ball, K., Smith, D., Ellison, A., & Schenk, T. (2009). Both egocentric and allocentric cues support spatial priming in visual search. Neuropsychologia,47(6), 1585-1591. [4] Bouwer, A., Visser, A., Nack, F., & Terwijn, B. (2013). Location Awareness, Orientation and Navigation: Lessons Learned from the SmartInside Project.LAMDa13, 1. [5] Boyatzis, R. E. (1998). Transforming qualitative information: Thematic analysis and code development. Sage. [6] Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology.Qualitative research in psychology, 3(2), 77-101. [7] Brown, M. (2013, April). OPENING INDOORS: THE ADVENT OF INDOOR POSITIONING. In Contemporary Ergonomics and Human Factors 2013: Proceedings of the International Conference on Ergonomics and Human Factors 2013, Cambridge, UK, 15-18 April 2013 (p. 35). Taylor & Francis. [8] Brown, M., & Pinchin, J. (2013). Exploring Human Factors in Indoor Navigation. Presented at the European Navigation Conference http://www.enc2013.org/. Available at http://www.academia.edu/4062966/Exploring_Human_Factors_in_Indoor_Navigation [9] Buzski, G. (2005). Theta rhythm of navigation: link between path integration and landmark navigation, episodic and semantic memory. Hippocampus,15(7), 827-840.

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[10] Cobb, H.S. (1997). GPS pseudolites: theory, design, and applications, PhD thesis, Stanford University. [11] Crundall, D., Crundall, E., Burnett, G., Shalloe, S., & Sharples, S. (2011). The impact of map orientation and generalisation on congestion decisions: a comparison of schematic-egocentric and topographic-allocentric maps.Ergonomics, 54(8), 700-715. [12] Dedes, G., & Dempster, A. G. (2005, September). Indoor GPS Positioning. In Proceedings of the IEEE Semiannual Vehicular Technology Conference. [13] Dix, A. (Ed.). (2004). Human computer interaction. Pearson Education. [14] Endsley, M. R. (2003). Designing for situation awareness: An approach to user-centered design. Taylor & Francis US. [15]Fallah, N., Apostolopoulos, I., Bekris, K., & Folmer, E. (2013). Indoor Human Navigation Systems: A Survey. Interacting with Computers, 25(1), 21-33. [16]He, Z., Renaudin, V., Petovello, M. G., & Lachapelle, G. (2013). Use of High Sensitivity GNSS Receiver Doppler Measurements for Indoor Pedestrian Dead Reckoning. Sensors, 13(4), 4303-4326. [17] http://developer.android.com/reference/android/hardware/SensorEvent.html [18] Iaria, G., Petrides, M., Dagher, A., Pike, B., & Bohbot, V. D. (2003). Cognitive strategies dependent on the hippocampus and caudate nucleus in human navigation: variability and change with practice. The journal of neuroscience, 23(13), 5945-5952. [19] Johnston, G. (2013). Improving Indoor BlueTooth Localization By Using Bayesian Reasoning To Explore System Parameters. [20] Klatzky, R. L. (1998, January). Allocentric and egocentric spatial representations: Definitions, distinctions, and interconnections. In Spatial cognition (pp. 1-17). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. [21] Koch, O., & Teller, S. (2008). A self-calibrating, vision-based navigation assistant. In Workshop on Computer Vision Applications for the Visually Impaired. [22]Litosseliti, L. (2003). Using focus groups in research. Continuum International Publishing Group. [23] Mou, W., McNamara, T. P., Valiquette, C. M., & Rump, B. (2004). Allocentric and egocentric

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updating of spatial memories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30(1), 142. [24] Nielsen, J. (1994). Usability engineering. Access Online via Elsevier. [25] Pantel, L., & Wolf, L. C. (2002, April). On the suitability of dead reckoning schemes for games. In Proceedings of the 1st workshop on Network and system support for games (pp. 79-84). ACM. [26] Panzieri, S., Pascucci, F., & Ulivi, G. (2002). An outdoor navigation system using GPS and inertial platform. Mechatronics, IEEE/ASME Transactions on, 7(2), 134-142. [27] Patel, S. N., Truong, K. N., & Abowd, G. D. (2006). Powerline positioning: A practical sub-room-level indoor location system for domestic use. InUbiComp 2006: Ubiquitous Computing (pp. 441-458). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. [28] Pinchin, J., Hide, C., & Moore, T. (2012, November). A particle filter approach to indoor navigation using a foot mounted inertial navigation system and heuristic heading information. In Indoor Positioning and Indoor Navigation (IPIN), 2012 International Conference on (pp. 1-10). IEEE. [29] Ramirez, L., Denef, S., & Dyrks, T. (2009, April). Towards human-centered support for indoor navigation. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1279-1282). ACM. [30] Rao, H., & Fu, W. T. (2013, March). A General Framework for a Collaborative Mobile Indoor Navigation Assistance System. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Location Awareness for Mixed and Dual Reality(pp. 21-24). [31] Ross, D. A., & Blasch, B. B. (2002). Development of a wearable computer orientation system. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 6(1), 49-63. [32] Weiser, M. (1993). Some computer science issues in ubiquitous computing.Communications of the ACM, 36(7), 75-84. [33]Willis, S., & Helal, S. (2005, October). RFID information grid for blind navigation and wayfinding. In Wearable Computers, 2005. Proceedings. Ninth IEEE International Symposium on (pp. 34-37). IEEE. [34] Wong, W., Liew, L. S., Lai, C. H., & Liu, L. (2013). Accurate Indoor Positioning Technique Using RSSI Assisted Inertial Measurement. In Future Information Communication Technology and Applications (pp. 121-129). Springer Netherlands.

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[35] Wu, H., Marshall, A., & Yu, W. (2007, July). Path planning and following algorithms in an indoor navigation model for visually impaired. In Internet Monitoring and Protection, 2007. ICIMP 2007. Second International Conference on (pp. 38-38). IEEE. [36] Zijlstra, F. R. H. (1993). Efficiency in work behaviour: A design approach for modern tools. [37] Zitkus, E., Langdon, P., & Clarkson, P. J. (2011). Accessibility evaluation: assistive tools for design activity in product development. In Proceedings of the 1st international conference on sustainable intelligent manufacturing, Leiria, Portugal.a

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Appendix A

Task List of The Trials

44

Appendix B

User Completion Time in Each Mode

45

Appendix C

SMEQ Scores Marked By The Users

46

Appendix D
Post-Trial Questionnaire
Please answer the following questions as fully as possible. If you have any questions about how to complete this form, please ask the experimenter.

Part 1: Difficulty
Please mark a single line on the following scale indicating how hard you found this task to complete:

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Experience
Was there any part of the interface that you found particularly helpful in completing the task? If so please give as much detail as possible. _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ Was there any part of the interface that you found particularly unhelpful in completing the task? If so please give as much detail as possible. _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ Finally, do you have any comments about this particular interface? _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________

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Appendix E
Debriefing Questionnaire
Please answer the following questions as fully as possible. If you have any questions about how to complete this form, please ask the experimenter.

Closing Questions
Thank you for completing the trials, we have a final set of questions: Which mode did you prefer for finding your way around the maze (please circle one): Egocentric Mode Allocentric Mode Baseline Mode

Why did you prefer this mode?: _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ Do you have any final comments you would like to make about the study?: _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ This is the end of the study please hand your completed questionnaire to the experimenter

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Appendix F
Comments From The Users
The numbers represent the participants (No.1, No.2...).

EGOCENTRIC Helpful Part

1. None 2. The route is clear. 3. None 4. None 5. At the beginning, it helped to decide which direction i should go. And the map somehow help me to make decision during the process. 6. The rotating map is helpful. 7. Arrows on the map helped me to identify my direction 8. The screen rotation function on the phone was very good and clear. 9. Clear route 10. Helpful when walking straight 11. The function is helpful for people who have no sense of the direction. 12. This function helps me to find my current orientation. So i know how i should go ahead. 13. Egocentric function is helpful to guid the route when i changed orientation 14. Changing direction of the map as you move is very helpful. 15. Clear route and the arrows on the map are very useful. 16. The map can change the orientation synchronously 17. The map would change orientation according to your orientation

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18. The map can be a good aid to match the real environment. Arrows on the map tell the right direction. 19. It is helpful for me. I know which direction i should go 20. None 21. None 22. Clear route 23. Arrows on the map indicate where i should go 24. I think the arrows on the map are helpful to understand the path.

Unhelpful Part
1. No GPS. The orientation kept changing. Very confusing. 2. The direction is clear. There was delay in changing orientation. And i needed time to react. I would rather follow the static map. 3. The map was changing. I prefer walking by myself rather than using this mode. 4. The map changed fast 5. Arrow on the map was only helpful at the beginning 6. The lack of stability interfered my judgement. If this problem can be solved, the system would be more useful. 7. None 8. The map changed too fast. 9. The map shaked sometimes. 10. Confused when turning 11. None 12. Not very stable as well 13. The map cannot be enlarged 14. Smoother transition would help make it easier
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15. None 16. The map changed too fast. Once the map changed , i have to re-understand the map. 17. The map changed automatically sometimes 18. The map revolve too fast. 19. I did not know where i was in the maze 20. Rotating map confused me. Hard to find where i was 21. It made harder to navigate 22. I got confused with the changing map 23. None 24. Rotating map was unhelpful and confusing.

Other Comments
1. I like GPS. 2. Route is clear. 3. Making the changes of map more stable and accurate will be more helpful. 4. None 5. Real time positioning may help to reduce users memory load. 6. None 7. The floor is too complicated 8. You can slow down the map rotation time to let people get ready to change the orientation 9. Good design 10. None 11. It is better to have a point to show where the user is. 12. Sometimes i think i should give it up and just follow the map.
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13. None 14. Good. Easier if you know where you are 15. None 16. When the map changed, it should tell i should turn left or right\ 17. Can be more accurate 18. Need respond time 19. I wish it would indicate where i am and whether my orientation is right. 3D map is better 20. This did not work for me 21. None 22. I lost myself with the help of the rotating map 23. A little confused because i did not know where i was 24. Most confusing mode in 3

ALLOCENTRIC Helpful Part

1. None 2. The arrow is helpful to confirm the direction. 3. The map on the top of the page. I can see the whole map. That is helpful to know where i am. 4. The compass is helpful . 5. I compared the map and the field to located my position 6. None 7. Route on the map helped to identify the direction 8. The map is fixed and the route is clear.
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9. The arrow 10. Straightly direct to the destination 11. The arrow showing the direction is helpful 12. The arrow followed my turning around precisely. 13. The map 14. The arrow is helpful. The map provided good guidance 15. The arrows on the map 16. When i was in the maze, the pointer can tell me do i face to the correct direction 17. The pointing arrow is helpful 18. The compass is good. When i got confused at a cross, it told me the right option 19. None 20. This mode is helpful when completing the task 21. The arrow give you the sense of direction 22. The route and the arrows on the map are helpful 23. The red arrow was very helpful and i have not been confused like in the previous trials 24. The red arrow was more helpful then the map. I was paying more attention to the arrow.

Unhelpful Part
1. The arrow does not make any sense. I just followed the map 2. Time needed to get familiar with how the arrow worked. There was some errors with my orientation. 3. The arrow is not stable. A little confused. 4. Errors disturbed my decision sometimes. Arrow sometimes responded slowly since it is a short path

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5. Confused with the red arrow. In Google map, the direction arrow is helpful because it can locate users position. 6. The compass is like art of work. Because it sometimes did not point to the right direction. 7. The red arrow is confusing. 8. The compass is unstable. Got confused when on half way. 9. The map made me confused 10. Most of time the arrow was confusing 11. None 12. The arrow was so sensitive that it took some time to point to the right direction. Not stable and changed often. 13. None 14. The arrow did not give the direction you should walk. When you move around the arrow would change a lot. 15. The pointer arrow is not stable. 16. I need to see the map and the pointer at the same time. And it makes the tool a little difficult to use. 17. The arrow should be calibrated many times. 18. Unfortunately, the compass is not quite stable or accurate 19. The map cannot rotate along with my direction. I felt confused when i walked a long way and cannot find where i am 20. None 21. None 22. None 23. None 24. The map did not help me much. It was more complicated than baseline mode
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Other Comments
1. Not useful. I chose not to use the arrow. The map is helpful enough. 2. None 3. GPS on the map. 4. None 5. GPS. It is suggested to make it more accurate. 6. Baseline is better than this 7. None 8. None 9. None 10. None 11. It is better to have a point to show where the user is. 12. If it is not quite stable, i doubt that i would use it the second time 13. None 14. Arrow accuracy could be improved 15. I have to match the orientation of the red arrow with the arrows on the map. 16. How about combine the function of map and pointer together 17. Helpful 18. It could be better to provide location of the user 19. The arrow somethings cannot perform accurately. 20. None 21. None 22. None 23. None
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24. I like this mode better than the baseline mode. But i found it difficult to use the map and the arrow at the same time. That was why i took longer to complete the task

BASELINE Helpful Part

1. Fixed interface. 2. Fixed map. 3. The route is clear. It gave me confidence to complete the task 4. Just a normal map 5. None 6. The route is helpful. 7. The route on the map helped to identify the direction 8. The map is fixed 9. Clear route 10. Good to follow my instinct 11. The route is clear 12. The map is very detailed and fits the real maze. 13. It is help to give overview of the map and the route. 14. The map gave a perfect outline. This made it quick to get the destination. 15. Clear map with start point and end point. 16. Clear map and route. The interface is clear, no unuseful information on the screen 17. Arrows provided on the map 18. The route is useful. 19. Clear end point.
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20. None 21. None 22. The route is useful 23. It was helpful that i had to chase the route on the map 24. Fixed map was good but wan not as much helpful

Unhelpful Part
1. Fixed interface. 2. I think the map is a little different from the real maze. 3. Everything is OK 4. None 5. The arrows are not very helpful 6. Better to embed a compass in it. The lines on the floor disturb users to find the right way 7. None 8. I need to rotate the map by myself. 9. The map is confusing 10. A little confused with the location of the end point 11. The map was fixed but it was opposite with the real route. No hint of users current orientation. 12. But when i needed to keep checking several times just for one turn because i did not know how far i should go ahead. 13. When i changed my orientation,there is no further function to help me. 14. No. The map is easy to follow 15. The arrows on map is unhelpful here

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16. I do not know where am i in the map. The user may get lost if only provided a static map. I prefer to view the map in full screen 17. The map can be larger 18. No navigation aid 19. The map cannot guid me well. I cannot depend on it too much. 20. None 21. No direction indication made it hard to find the way 22. None 23. None 24. I did not understand the map until i looked at the map again. A little confused in the beginning.

Other Comments
1. None. 2. It was important to make the initial orientation correct. But it was easier for me to go through the maze by sight. Because for easy route, relying on the app slowed my speed down. 3. GPS needed. 4. None 5. The maze is very small. Easier to follow the route by sight. I almost did not look at the device 6. None 7. None 8. None 9. Good design. No shake. Clear route design. 10. None 11. None
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12. It is very good and interesting. 13. None 14. I think if you find it difficult to navigate the maze, then a directional interface would help. This would also help with a more complicated maze or one you could not see your all the route by sight 15. Familiar with this mode. Just like a map. 16. Bigger map. 17. Simple and effective. 18. Too simple, no further aid 19. I wish it could indicate some guid for me. 20. Better than egocentric mode. But i think it could be better if the map can give some hints 21. None 22. None 23. Innovative 24. Interesting but not helpful. Maybe a colored map would be more helpful.

DEBRIEFING
1. Prefer Baseline. Reason: Because it is fixed. Comment: Other modes are useless. 2. Prefer Baseline. Reason: The direction it is locked. Static is easier Comment: For easier tasks, better not to use any aid. But for complicated tasks, the arrow or the other aids may be helpful. 3. Prefer Baseline. Reason: It is simple and clear enough. Stable.
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Comment: I like the experiment better if the maze is more a maze, such as using the clapboards and clean floor. 4. Prefer Baseline. Reason: That is enough for the tasks Comment: Real-time positioning may be more helpful. 5. Prefer Egocentric. Reason: It is easier for me to determine my direction. Better to be more accurate Comment: The maze should be bigger and more complex. The system should be more accurate. 6. Prefer Egocentric. Reason: It helped me to find the right way easily Comment: None 7. Prefer Baseline. Reason: The other two modes due to the technical difficulties make the indication unstable and inaccurate somewhat. Comment: None 8. Prefer Egocentric. Reason: It provided the real time position & direction Comment: The rotation time of the map can be slower, in order to let people get ready. 9. Prefer Baseline. Reason: None Comment: None 10. Prefer Baseline. Reason: It is more clear than the others Comment: Hope the map can be rotated manually or the PacMan function(when the user pass one point then the point disappears) 11. Prefer Allocentric. Reason: The arrow as a pointer is convenient Comment: It could be better with real-time positioning and the signs of E, W, S ,N 12. Prefer Baseline. Reason: It is very reliable when the map is fixed and correct. Comment: It is a very interesting project. If the system would be more stable, it could not be better.
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13. Prefer Egocentric. Reason: It can change the orientation of the map according to my orientation. Comment: The map should be enlarged. And audio guide would be considered. 14. Prefer Baseline. Reason: I am very good at reading and understanding maps. For people who are not, egocentric mode would be easier i think. Comment: Nice app. Just make it smoother. 15. Prefer Egocentric. Reason: It is more clear to see and more useful than baseline mode Comment: None 16. Prefer Baseline. Reason: Easy to use and not confusing. Comment: None 17. Prefer Egocentric. Reason: it is simple and accurate. Easy to use and no need to calibrate. Comment: The app is base on the magnetic field. So it is too sensitive to the environment. 18. Prefer Egocentric. Reason: in this mode, i feel quite easier to find the way Comment: many things could be improved, such as real-time positioning 19. Prefer Egocentric. Reason: the map can rotate. I can depend on it Comment: i wish the map can be 3D and with audio guide. 20. Prefer Allocentric. Reason: The arrow can tell my orientation. I think the most important thing in the maze is knowing your orientation. Comment: None 21. Prefer Allocentric. Reason: the direction arrow help to identify which direction i was facing to Comment: The study present several interesting different interfaces to help navigation 22. Prefer Allocentric. Reason: this mode help me to keep my navigation going in the area Comment: i prefer to know my current position on the map
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23. Prefer Allocentric. Reason: It is the easiest way. Comment: None 24. Prefer Allocentric. Reason: I thought it was more precise and just by follow the arrow i was able to reach the end point. Comment: the study was interesting and with lots of possibilities for navigation applications

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Appendix G Relevant Code of The Prototype

(a)

(b)

(c)

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(d)

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