An interface design for urban recreational walking: A practice-based case study

GPS-enabled mobile maps are now commonly used to wayfind in urban locations. Though increasingly efficient and more widely available, little attention has been paid to how novel approaches to the design of the visual interface may support particular user-experiences. This article presents the results of a practice-based study focusing on the design of an interface which allows walkers to maintain an awareness of the surrounding environment as they wayfind. Through an iterative process, a mixed-fidelity working prototype was developed and tested in a field setting. Results indicate that the interface promoted a high level of awareness of the surrounding environment

Avaliação da eficácia de avisos de segurança em diferentes níveis de carga cognitiva num simulador em realidade virtual

Este trabalho teve como objetivo principal a avaliação da consonância comportamental com avisos de segurança em diferentes níveis de carga cognitiva. Muitos estudos têm demonstrado, com o paradigma da dupla tarefa, que o incremento da carga cognitiva em uma das tarefas interfere no desempenho de tarefas concorrentes e compromete a capacidade das pessoas em processar informações. O paradigma da dupla tarefa tem sido explorado, sobretudo, em situações dinâmicas de condução de automóveis e de controlo de tráfego aéreo. São ainda poucos os estudos que avaliem a relação da carga cognitiva decorrente de tarefas de trabalho menos dinâmicas com a consonância comportamental com avisos de segurança. Estudar a consonância comportamental com avisos de segurança em situação real é uma questão difícil. A Realidade Virtual (RV) pode ser assumida como a metodologia mais adequada para usar neste contexto, pois supera as limitações metodológicas, financeiras e éticas. Assim, um segundo objetivo deste trabalho foi desenvolver um simulador em RV para avaliar a consonância com avisos de segurança (estáticos e dinâmicos) em diferentes níveis de carga cognitiva (elevada, baixa e neutra), numa situação de trabalho em armazéns. Os resultados obtidos indicam que os avisos estáticos não estimulam o comportamento de consonância, independente do nível da carga cognitiva. Os avisos dinâmicos, por sua vez, provocam a consonância quando o nível de carga cognitiva é baixo ou neutro, mas não conseguem influenciar o comportamento do indivíduo em carga cognitiva elevada. Relativamente ao simulador, a RV mostrou ser eficaz para avaliar a consonância comportamental com avisos de segurança, apresentando resultados idênticos a estudos efetuados em condições laboratoriais. Como conclusão, espera-se que este trabalho venha a contribuir para o design de avisos que levem em consideração o contexto de trabalho, nomeadamente as situações de dupla tarefa que podem aumentar a carga cognitiva.The main objective of this work was to evaluate behavioral compliance with safety warnings for different levels of cognitive workload. Several studies indicate, with the dual task paradigm, that increasing the cognitive workload in one task interferes on the performance of concurrent ones and affects a person’s ability to process information. The dual task paradigm has been explored particularly in dynamic situations such as driving automobiles and air traffic control. Very few studies evaluate the relationship between cognitive workload due to less dynamic work tasks with safety warnings compliance behavior. To study the safety warnings compliance behavior in real situations is a difficult endeavor. The methodology most suitable in this context is Virtual Reality (VR), because it surpasses the financial and ethical limits for the methodology. Therefore, the second objective for this work was to develop a VR simulator to evaluate the compliance with safety warnings (static and dynamic) with different levels of cognitive workloads (high, low and neutral), for working in warehouses. The results show that static warnings do not stimulate compliance behavior, regardless of cognitive workload level. Dynamic warnings lead to compliance when the cognitive workload is low or neutral, but cannot influence the person’s behavior if the cognitive workload is high. For the simulator, VR was effective to evaluate safety warnings compliance behavior, showing identical results to laboratory studies. Concluding, one hopes this work will contribute to the design of warnings that take in consideration the work conditions, namely the dual tasks situations that could increase the cognitive workload

A Novel Graphic Syntax: An investigation into how a GPS-enabled wayfinding interface can be designed to visually support urban recreational walkers’ situation awareness

GPS-enabled wayfinding interfaces (i.e. digital maps) are now commonly used as wayfinding devices in urban locations. While these wayfinding interfaces provide increasingly accurate geographic and routing information, little attention has been paid to how novel information design approaches may support particular user-experiences within particular use-contexts. This practice-based research focuses on the design of GPS-enabled wayfinding interfaces within the use-context of urban recreational walking/wandering. In particular, it investigates how these interfaces could be designed to visually support situation awarenessin use. That is, awareness of one’s embodied involvement in the surrounding environment while using the interface. The enquiry progresses through two phases. In the first phase, a programme of semi-structured interviews are conducted with urban recreational walkers/wanderers. Analysis of the data reveals participants’ motivations to walk, their experience of exploratory wayfinding, as well as their use of wayfinding materials in general and GPS-enabled technology in particular. With regard to the latter,attention is paid to ways in which these wayfinding interfaces are negatively perceived.Here, it is identified that, amongst the group as a whole, the undermining of situation awareness (SA) and the negation of exploratory wayfinding practices are seen as significant issues. Having made this identification, an area for experimentation is framed and, within this, a design hypothesis is formulated. Next, in the enquiry’s second phase, a series of design experiments are undertaken in order to develop a novel wayfinding interface in response to this hypothesis. Here, an iterative development cycle leads to the design and testing of a mixed-fidelity working prototype interface through the application of qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis. By integrating and assessing the results, it is possible to assert that,for the majority of participants, SA-in-use was supported, thus verifying the hypothesis.Thereafter, the interface is presented as a practical response to the primary research question of the enquiry and, as such, is positioned as an artefactual contribution to knowledge.Then, through a graphic syntax analysis (Engelhardt 2002) of this artefact, a contextualised graphic syntax for design is generated. In setting out a series of principles, it provides an outline for the design of a GPS-enabled WI to visually support an urban recreational walker’s/wanderer’s situation awareness in use and, so, may guide/inform future designs.Further to this, in graphic syntax analysis, a reflection on the dynamic and interactive aspects of the interface leads to an extension of Engelhardt’s graphic syntax framework(2002) being proposed. Here, by expanding the framework’s scope, the description of the dynamic and interactive aspects of graphic representations is now made possible. It is held that this, in turn, may support the development of an expanded theory of graphic syntax