Virtual rehabilitation often incorporates an element of travel in a virtual environment. Whether patients are transported automatically through the environment, or whether they have navigational control, it is important to understand how the design of the environment itself can supply navigational cues, and how the processing of these cues may influence perception, behaviour and task performance. This paper explores the literature, which might inform application design, and presents a case study using a think-aloud protocol to explore the perception of users to visual cues within a running game. We conclude with some preliminary suggestions for positive and negative navigational cues

Croucher, Charlotte

Molnar, Andreea

Powell, Vaughan

Powell, Wendy

Portsmouth University Research Portal (Pure)

Proc. 11th Intl Conf. Disability, Virtual Reality & Associated Technologies  
Los Angeles, California, USA, 20–22 Sept. 2016 
2016 ICDVRAT; ISBN 978-0-7049-1546-6 
1 
Visual elements influence on navigation in Virtual Environments 
C. Croucher 1, V. Powell 2, A. Molnar 3, W. Powell 4 
1,2,3,4 School of Creative Technologies, University of Portsmouth, 
Winston Churchill Ave, Portsmouth, UNITED KINGDOM 
1up642143@myport.ac.uk, 2vaughan.powell@port.ac.uk, 3andreea.molnar@port.ac.uk, 
4wendy.powell@port.ac.uk 
1,2,3,4 http://www.port.ac.uk/ 
ABSTRACT 
Virtual rehabilitation often incorporates an element of travel in a virtual environment. Whether patients are 
transported automatically through the environment, or whether they have navigational control, it is important to 
understand how the design of the environment itself can supply navigational cues, and how the processing of 
these cues may influence perception, behaviour and task performance. This paper explores the literature, which 
might inform application design, and presents a case study using a think-aloud protocol to explore the perception 
of users to visual cues within a running game. We conclude with some preliminary suggestions for positive and 
negative navigational cues. 
1.  INTRODUCTION 
Virtual rehabilitation often involves navigating through a virtual environment while performing the rehabilitation 
tasks. It is often necessary to guide or influence the patient's navigation direction, to lead them towards a specific 
point, to limit exploration of a finite environment, or to redirect their movements within the real world space.  
    However currently there is little known on why and how people make choices when navigating within a 
virtual environment. Navigational studies commonly explore participant’s memory of a route, focusing on 
landmarks, routes and layout of an environment (Van der Ham et al., 2015), rather than their dynamic response 
to perceptual cues. Vasylevska et al. (2013) created an application to test participants’ responses to perceptual 
cues. They designed a building that could be explored by the users without any instructions. The corridor would 
then change its features and content when a room was entered. The changes proved to be unnoticed by users, but 
require modifications. This suggests that by obscuring the user’s sense of direction, participants experience a 
sense of being lost due to a lack of orientation aids in virtual environments (Vasylevska et al. 2013). Redirecting 
participants in different directions, in order to believe that they are in a larger space suggests that certain 
navigational cues are not being entirely considered by the participants explaining why they were feeling lost 
(Vasylevska et al. 2013). Therefore, there is a need to better understand the influence of navigational cues in a 
virtual environment. 
    Improving our understanding of user’s responses to visual cues may influence navigational choices and would 
allow us to provide conscious or unconscious navigational aids within virtual rehabilitation applications. This 
would enable a patient to be guided around a virtual environment whilst creating a sense of navigational control, 
and could also avoid inadvertently adding to their cognitive load.  
2. REACHING A TARGET LOCATION FROM THE CURRENT LOCATION 
Wayfinding is the term used to describe the spatial problem solving of reaching a target location from the current 
location. In the context of this research, we use Emo (2014) definition of wayfinding, where wayfinding is 
defined as cognitive approach to a task, based upon visual perceptions in the environment. In order to explore 
participant perception and how visual cues may influence people to make certain navigational choices, it will be 
important to have an understanding of the components of wayfinding. 
    Effective wayfinding may use elements of location identity, landmarks, orientation cues, well-structured 
paths, and visually distinctive regions, as well as survey views, signs and sight lines (Foltz, 1998). Additionally, 
navigational aids can include ‘signs’, ‘maps’, ‘landmarks’, ‘lighting’, ‘architectural design’, ‘compasses’, 
‘reference objects’ ‘trails’ and ‘audio and olfactory cues’ (Lee and Kline 2011; Bowman 2004).  
Proc. 10th Intl Conf. Disability, Virtual Reality & Associated Technologies  
Los Angeles, California, USA, 20–22 Sept. 2016 
2016 ICDVRAT; ISBN 978-0-7049-1546-6 
2 
Most of the research on wayfinding relates to interactions with keyboard, mouse or joystick, and less is 
known about how these cues are perceived during more active interactions. This paper presents a pilot study 
exploring how users perceive visual cues whilst running-in-place through a virtual environment. 
3. PILOT STUDY 
The aim of this research is to investigate conscious navigational aids presented within an environment. A pilot 
study was used to address participant’s perception of applications when travelling through an environment, 
which does not allow for a choice in navigation. This will help to understand how a patient could travel through 
an environment whilst creating a sense of navigational control, but also to increase any unnecessary cognitive 
load.  
For this pilot study, we opted to explore the perception of participants travelling along a route which did not 
allow them navigation choices, using the ‘Wii-Fit running mini game’. This game features a populated open 
environment, with a structured path where the character follows the guide, along an animated path.  
    During the study, we followed a ‘think aloud’ protocol. The ‘think aloud’ protocol allow participants to 
verbalise their opinion during the pilot study. This method is appropriate to observe participants, without the bias 
of prompting participants to say what is expected of them. This will allow a basic understanding of user’s 
responses to visual cues, which may influence their choices in navigation.  
    Four adults participated in the study: three male and one female, age ranging from 21 to 44 years old and an 
average age of 32 years old. The participants were familiarized with the equipment and how a ‘think aloud’ 
protocol works. They were then given a Wii-remote and stood in front of a television. There were cameras 
positioned behind, in front and to the side of each participant, to capture any data surrounding body movements.  
    At the end of the pilot study, a short interview was conducted asking the following questions in order to 
prompt any extra data from the participants: ‘Did you find yourself at any point wanting to travel somewhere 
else?’, if so ‘What specifically made you want to go in another direction?’ and ‘How did travelling through the 
environment feel?’ The questions were designed to be open ended to not push participants to what they deem is 
an appropriate answer, but to create a basic understanding of user’s responses to visual cues, which may have 
influence their choices in navigation. 
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 
The study was used to create a basic understanding of user’s responses to visual cues, to see how an environment 
that contains no navigational control may influence choices in navigation within predefined populations. 
Participant’s perception of the environment altered throughout, for different reasons (see Table 1 for more 
details).  
    When prompted by the user interface, to change pace when travelling through the environment, participants 
either experienced deflation, or disappointment, as a result of the pace suggested not meeting the user’s 
expectations. In virtual rehabilitation it would make sense that participants should feel a sense of control of their 
own pace as this could hinder the process of achieving their therapeutic goals. 
    Participants one and two started moving forward in the physical world, when approaching a fork in the path in 
the virtual world, perhaps subconsciously having made a choice in navigation. Two participants that took the 
longest to travel through the environment, noted the majority of navigational cues within the virtual 
environment. It may suggest that patients need busier environments with enough to focus their attention on, as 
the participants who travel faster notice fewer navigational cues. This needs to be considered within the design 
of virtual rehabilitation applications if patients need to see the cues.  
     There are certain suggestions on how to subliminally guide people in certain directions, by redirecting 
participant’s attention to areas of interest. It can be suggested that visual cues need to blend well into the 
environment, perhaps by using colour coding in order to help navigate participants (Madigan, 2013). If visual 
cues are subliminally implemented into the design of virtual environments, this could lead to ‘inattentional 
blindness’. This is a daily subconscious occurrence when certain situations are not noticed, as their attention is 
associated with something else at the time. It occurs because only a small percentage of conscious perception 
occurs at a given moment as a result of senses becoming overwhelmed (Green, 2013). Therefore, if a virtual 
environment is to be designed with influencing choices while still having a sense of openness for participants in 
virtual rehabilitation it will be important to consider ‘inattentional blindness’. 
 Participant three has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which may explain why they appeared 
more concerned with the task of finishing the race than commenting on usability as instructed. It is important to 
Proc. 11th Intl Conf. Disability, Virtual Reality & Associated Technologies  
Los Angeles, California, USA, 20–22 Sept. 2016 
2016 ICDVRAT; ISBN 978-0-7049-1546-6 
3 
acknowledge that this pilot study was to generate a basic understanding of participant’s perception of 
navigational cues, highlighted from literature, so there was little concern about demographics at this current 
stage of researching. However, as virtual rehabilitation is being adopted for clinical treatment of ADHD (Yeh, 
Fan, Liu, Tsai, & Rizzo, 2012, p.78) it is important to consider the behaviour of participants that have ADHD, as 
this might affect design considerations when influencing direction of travel. 
Table 1. Summarized key visual elements that were commented upon from the pilot study 
Navigational 
cue 
Participant One 
Reaction 
Participant Two 
Reaction 
Participant Three 
Reaction 
Participant Four 
Reaction 
Structured 
Path 
Became bored with 
the path as they no 
longer wanted to 
follow everyone else. 
Did not have any 
desire to not follow 
the path. 
Did not have any 
desire to not follow 
the path. 
Did not have any 
desire to not follow 
the path. 
Small 
Natural 
Tunnel 
Found the small 
natural tunnel fun, 
commented that the 
shadow created made 
them cooler. 
Knew they were 
heading towards the 
tunnel, mentioning 
the shade, but 
expressed no 
feelings. 
Knew they were 
heading towards the 
tunnel, but expressed 
no feelings. 
Knew they were 
heading towards the 
tunnel, but expressed 
no feelings. 
Grass Felt compelled to run 
along the grass 
No Reaction No Reaction No Reaction 
Characters Kept saying hello, 
and interacting with 
the characters by 
waving back. Did not 
enjoy being 
overtaken by others. 
Found the dogs cute.  
 
Did not enjoy being 
overtaken by other 
runners or the dogs. 
Initially bemused 
with the waving, 
and physically 
moved backwards. 
Later enjoyed the 
characters waving 
and felt it became a 
friendly 
atmosphere. 
Commented on other 
characters without 
showing any 
perception but 
acknowledged they 
were in the 
environment. 
 
Commented on other 
characters without 
showing any 
perception but 
acknowledged they 
were in the 
environment. 
 
Guide Wanted to get past 
the guide within the 
environment. 
 
No longer wanted 
to follow the same 
guide, wanted a 
different one to 
follow. 
Was frustrated with 
the guide being 
faster, and became 
more and more 
competitive 
throughout. 
Was frustrated with 
the guide being 
faster, and became 
competitive. 
Change of 
Pace 
Expected to go faster 
downhill, as a result 
became deflated. 
Was happy when 
overtaking 
someone, as they 
commented that 
they were 
frequently trying to 
increase speed. 
Was disappointed 
that they would be 
punished for going 
faster, as the 
character would trip 
as a result. 
Was frustrated that 
the interface told 
them to slow down 
and not speed up. 
Fork in the 
path 
Sped up upon 
approach. 
Sped up upon 
approach. 
No reaction. No reaction. 
 
The main key findings of the study are: 
 Participants frequently commented upon the characters in the environment. 
 All participants became frustrated at the change in pace throughout the environment, not allowing them to 
travel at their speed, or not doing what they expected to occur. 
 All participants commented on a small natural tunnel present within the environment through which the 
participants had to travel, and the shadow it cast. 
 Majority had no desire to leave the structured path. 
 All participants commented upon the environment’s landmarks by expressing their feelings and perceptions. 
Proc. 10th Intl Conf. Disability, Virtual Reality & Associated Technologies  
Los Angeles, California, USA, 20–22 Sept. 2016 
2016 ICDVRAT; ISBN 978-0-7049-1546-6 
4 
5. CONCLUSIONS 
Conducting the pilot study was beneficial. It highlighted inattentional blindness, as an important psychological 
consideration, as well as behaviour alterations when presented with certain navigational aids, some of which 
were visual. It also shows that the participants become frustrated when not allowed to control their own speed. A 
well-structured path may prove beneficial in order to influence their choice, yet may not lead to the openness of 
an environment that would be beneficial for rehabilitation. Therefore subtle navigational cues will be important 
to influence participants’ navigational choices by association of elements such as colour. Overall it seems 
possible to influence the direction of travel, to help achieve therapeutic goals while allowing for an open world. 
However, further work will need to be carried out to validate the results. 
   During the pilot study, participants commented upon: ‘Landmarks and Artificial Landmarks’, ‘User interface, 
with relation to maps’, ‘lighting’, ‘Colour and Atmospheric effects’ and ‘Signs’. Therefore the choices presented 
in Table 2 can be extracted as reassuring or discouraging cues.  
Table 1: Possible navigational cues for future study 
Reassuring Navigational Cue Discouraging Navigational Cue 
Main Street Alleyway 
Illuminated Shadowed 
Good Condition (Clean, well looked after etc.) Bad Condition (Messy, destroyed etc.) 
Free Path (Without Obstacles) Obstructed path (With obstacles) 
Sun Rain 
Populated Unpopulated 
Downhill Uphill 
Bright Colours Dull Colours 
6. REFERENCES 
Bowman, D.A, (2004), 3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice. Boston: London: Addison-Wesley, c2005. 
Emo, B, (2014), Seeing the axial line: Evidence from Wayfinding experiments. Behavioral Sciences, 4,3, 
pp.167-180. doi: 10.3390/bs4030167 
Foltz, MA, (1998), Designing Navigable Information Spaces (Thesis of science at the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology, Retrieved from Ai.mit.edu 17th December 2015, from 
http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/infoarch/publications/mfoltz-thesis/node8.html 
Green, M, (2013), “Inattentional Blindness” & Conspicuity. Visualexpert.com. Retrieved 2nd January 2016, from 
http://www.visualexpert.com/Resources/inattentionalblindness.html 
Harvey, C, Coen, P, and Tank, D, (2012), Choice-specific sequences in parietal cortex during a virtual-
navigation decision task. Nature, 484, 7392, pp. 62-68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature10918   
Hodent, C, (2015), The Gamer’s Brain: How Neuroscience and UX can impact Design. Celia Hodent. Retrieved 
2nd January 2016, from http://celiahodent.com/the-gamers-brain/#more-157 
Lee, S, and Kline, R, (2011), Wayfinding study in virtual environments: The elderly vs. the younger-aged 
groups. Archnet-IJAR, 5,2, 63. 
Madigan, J, (2013), Why Do Colour Coded Clues in Level Design Work?. The Psychology of Video Games. 
Retrieved 2nd January 2016, from http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2013/09/why-do-color-coded-clues-
in-level-design-work/ 
Moura, D, and Seif El-Nasar, (2014), Design Techniques for Planning Navigational Systems in 3-D Video 
Games. Computers in Entertainment, 12, 2, pp. 1-25. Doi:10. 1145/2701657.2633421 
Van der Ham, IM, Faber, AE, Venselaar, M, van Kreveld, MJ, and Löffler, M, (2015), Ecological validity of 
virtual environments to assess human navigation ability. Frontiers In Psychology, 61-6. doi: 
10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00637 
Vasylevska, K, Kaufmann, H, Bolas, M, and Suma, E, (2013), Flexible spaces: Dynamic layout generation for   
infinite walking in Virtual Environments. IEEE Symposium On 3D User Interfaces, pp.39-42. 
Yeh, S., Fan, Y., Liu, P., Tsai, C., and Rizzo, A. (2012). An innovative ADHD assessment system using virtual 
reality. 2012 IEEE-EMBS Conference On Biomedical Engineering And Sciences, IECBES 2012, (2012 IEEE-
EMBS Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, IECBES 2012), 78-83. doi: 
10.1109/IECBES.2012.6498026 
 


Visual elements influence on navigation in virtual environments

Name not available

Lancaster E-Prints

Proc. 11th Intl Conf. Disability, Virtual Reality & Associated Technologies  Los Angeles, California, USA, 20–22 Sept. 2016 2016 ICDVRAT; ISBN 978-0-7049-1546-6 1 Visual elements influence on navigation in Virtual Environments C. Croucher 1, V. Powell 2, A. Molnar 3, W. Powell 4 1,2,3,4 School of Creative Technologies, University of Portsmouth, Winston Churchill Ave, Portsmouth, UNITED KINGDOM 1up642143@myport.ac.uk, 2vaughan.powell@port.ac.uk, 3andreea.molnar@port.ac.uk, 4wendy.powell@port.ac.uk 1,2,3,4 http://www.port.ac.uk/ ABSTRACT Virtual rehabilitation often incorporates an element of travel in a virtual environment. Whether patients are transported automatically through the environment, or whether they have navigational control, it is important to understand how the design of the environment itself can supply navigational cues, and how the processing of these cues may influence perception, behaviour and task performance. This paper explores the literature, which might inform application design, and presents a case study using a think-aloud protocol to explore the perception of users to visual cues within a running game. We conclude with some preliminary suggestions for positive and negative navigational cues. 1.  INTRODUCTION Virtual rehabilitation often involves navigating through a virtual environment while performing the rehabilitation tasks. It is often necessary to guide or influence the patient's navigation direction, to lead them towards a specific point, to limit exploration of a finite environment, or to redirect their movements within the real world space.      However currently there is little known on why and how people make choices when navigating within a virtual environment. Navigational studies commonly explore participant’s memory of a route, focusing on landmarks, routes and layout of an environment (Van der Ham et al., 2015), rather than their dynamic response to perceptual cues. Vasylevska et al. (2013) created an application to test participants’ responses to perceptual cues. They designed a building that could be explored by the users without any instructions. The corridor would then change its features and content when a room was entered. The changes proved to be unnoticed by users, but require modifications. This suggests that by obscuring the user’s sense of direction, participants experience a sense of being lost due to a lack of orientation aids in virtual environments (Vasylevska et al. 2013). Redirecting participants in different directions, in order to believe that they are in a larger space suggests that certain navigational cues are not being entirely considered by the participants explaining why they were feeling lost (Vasylevska et al. 2013). Therefore, there is a need to better understand the influence of navigational cues in a virtual environment.     Improving our understanding of user’s responses to visual cues may influence navigational choices and would allow us to provide conscious or unconscious navigational aids within virtual rehabilitation applications. This would enable a patient to be guided around a virtual environment whilst creating a sense of navigational control, and could also avoid inadvertently adding to their cognitive load.  2. REACHING A TARGET LOCATION FROM THE CURRENT LOCATION Wayfinding is the term used to describe the spatial problem solving of reaching a target location from the current location. In the context of this research, we use Emo (2014) definition of wayfinding, where wayfinding is defined as cognitive approach to a task, based upon visual perceptions in the environment. In order to explore participant perception and how visual cues may influence people to make certain navigational choices, it will be important to have an understanding of the components of wayfinding.     Effective wayfinding may use elements of location identity, landmarks, orientation cues, well-structured paths, and visually distinctive regions, as well as survey views, signs and sight lines (Foltz, 1998). Additionally, navigational aids can include ‘signs’, ‘maps’, ‘landmarks’, ‘lighting’, ‘architectural design’, ‘compasses’, ‘reference objects’ ‘trails’ and ‘audio and olfactory cues’ (Lee and Kline 2011; Bowman 2004).  Proc. 10th Intl Conf. Disability, Virtual Reality & Associated Technologies  Los Angeles, California, USA, 20–22 Sept. 2016 2016 ICDVRAT; ISBN 978-0-7049-1546-6 2 Most of the research on wayfinding relates to interactions with keyboard, mouse or joystick, and less is known about how these cues are perceived during more active interactions. This paper presents a pilot study exploring how users perceive visual cues whilst running-in-place through a virtual environment. 3. PILOT STUDY The aim of this research is to investigate conscious navigational aids presented within an environment. A pilot study was used to address participant’s perception of applications when travelling through an environment, which does not allow for a choice in navigation. This will help to understand how a patient could travel through an environment whilst creating a sense of navigational control, but also to increase any unnecessary cognitive load.  For this pilot study, we opted to explore the perception of participants travelling along a route which did not allow them navigation choices, using the ‘Wii-Fit running mini game’. This game features a populated open environment, with a structured path where the character follows the guide, along an animated path.      During the study, we followed a ‘think aloud’ protocol. The ‘think aloud’ protocol allow participants to verbalise their opinion during the pilot study. This method is appropriate to observe participants, without the bias of prompting participants to say what is expected of them. This will allow a basic understanding of user’s responses to visual cues, which may influence their choices in navigation.      Four adults participated in the study: three male and one female, age ranging from 21 to 44 years old and an average age of 32 years old. The participants were familiarized with the equipment and how a ‘think aloud’ protocol works. They were then given a Wii-remote and stood in front of a television. There were cameras positioned behind, in front and to the side of each participant, to capture any data surrounding body movements.      At the end of the pilot study, a short interview was conducted asking the following questions in order to prompt any extra data from the participants: ‘Did you find yourself at any point wanting to travel somewhere else?’, if so ‘What specifically made you want to go in another direction?’ and ‘How did travelling through the environment feel?’ The questions were designed to be open ended to not push participants to what they deem is an appropriate answer, but to create a basic understanding of user’s responses to visual cues, which may have influence their choices in navigation. 4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS The study was used to create a basic understanding of user’s responses to visual cues, to see how an environment that contains no navigational control may influence choices in navigation within predefined populations. Participant’s perception of the environment altered throughout, for different reasons (see Table 1 for more details).      When prompted by the user interface, to change pace when travelling through the environment, participants either experienced deflation, or disappointment, as a result of the pace suggested not meeting the user’s expectations. In virtual rehabilitation it would make sense that participants should feel a sense of control of their own pace as this could hinder the process of achieving their therapeutic goals.     Participants one and two started moving forward in the physical world, when approaching a fork in the path in the virtual world, perhaps subconsciously having made a choice in navigation. Two participants that took the longest to travel through the environment, noted the majority of navigational cues within the virtual environment. It may suggest that patients need busier environments with enough to focus their attention on, as the participants who travel faster notice fewer navigational cues. This needs to be considered within the design of virtual rehabilitation applications if patients need to see the cues.       There are certain suggestions on how to subliminally guide people in certain directions, by redirecting participant’s attention to areas of interest. It can be suggested that visual cues need to blend well into the environment, perhaps by using colour coding in order to help navigate participants (Madigan, 2013). If visual cues are subliminally implemented into the design of virtual environments, this could lead to ‘inattentional blindness’. This is a daily subconscious occurrence when certain situations are not noticed, as their attention is associated with something else at the time. It occurs because only a small percentage of conscious perception occurs at a given moment as a result of senses becoming overwhelmed (Green, 2013). Therefore, if a virtual environment is to be designed with influencing choices while still having a sense of openness for participants in virtual rehabilitation it will be important to consider ‘inattentional blindness’.  Participant three has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which may explain why they appeared more concerned with the task of finishing the race than commenting on usability as instructed. It is important to Proc. 11th Intl Conf. Disability, Virtual Reality & Associated Technologies  Los Angeles, California, USA, 20–22 Sept. 2016 2016 ICDVRAT; ISBN 978-0-7049-1546-6 3 acknowledge that this pilot study was to generate a basic understanding of participant’s perception of navigational cues, highlighted from literature, so there was little concern about demographics at this current stage of researching. However, as virtual rehabilitation is being adopted for clinical treatment of ADHD (Yeh, Fan, Liu, Tsai, & Rizzo, 2012, p.78) it is important to consider the behaviour of participants that have ADHD, as this might affect design considerations when influencing direction of travel. Table 1. Summarized key visual elements that were commented upon from the pilot study Navigational cue Participant One Reaction Participant Two Reaction Participant Three Reaction Participant Four Reaction Structured Path Became bored with the path as they no longer wanted to follow everyone else. Did not have any desire to not follow the path. Did not have any desire to not follow the path. Did not have any desire to not follow the path. Small Natural Tunnel Found the small natural tunnel fun, commented that the shadow created made them cooler. Knew they were heading towards the tunnel, mentioning the shade, but expressed no feelings. Knew they were heading towards the tunnel, but expressed no feelings. Knew they were heading towards the tunnel, but expressed no feelings. Grass Felt compelled to run along the grass No Reaction No Reaction No Reaction Characters Kept saying hello, and interacting with the characters by waving back. Did not enjoy being overtaken by others. Found the dogs cute.   Did not enjoy being overtaken by other runners or the dogs. Initially bemused with the waving, and physically moved backwards. Later enjoyed the characters waving and felt it became a friendly atmosphere. Commented on other characters without showing any perception but acknowledged they were in the environment.  Commented on other characters without showing any perception but acknowledged they were in the environment.  Guide Wanted to get past the guide within the environment.  No longer wanted to follow the same guide, wanted a different one to follow. Was frustrated with the guide being faster, and became more and more competitive throughout. Was frustrated with the guide being faster, and became competitive. Change of Pace Expected to go faster downhill, as a result became deflated. Was happy when overtaking someone, as they commented that they were frequently trying to increase speed. Was disappointed that they would be punished for going faster, as the character would trip as a result. Was frustrated that the interface told them to slow down and not speed up. Fork in the path Sped up upon approach. Sped up upon approach. No reaction. No reaction.  The main key findings of the study are:  Participants frequently commented upon the characters in the environment.  All participants became frustrated at the change in pace throughout the environment, not allowing them to travel at their speed, or not doing what they expected to occur.  All participants commented on a small natural tunnel present within the environment through which the participants had to travel, and the shadow it cast.  Majority had no desire to leave the structured path.  All participants commented upon the environment’s landmarks by expressing their feelings and perceptions. Proc. 10th Intl Conf. Disability, Virtual Reality & Associated Technologies  Los Angeles, California, USA, 20–22 Sept. 2016 2016 ICDVRAT; ISBN 978-0-7049-1546-6 4 5. CONCLUSIONS Conducting the pilot study was beneficial. It highlighted inattentional blindness, as an important psychological consideration, as well as behaviour alterations when presented with certain navigational aids, some of which were visual. It also shows that the participants become frustrated when not allowed to control their own speed. A well-structured path may prove beneficial in order to influence their choice, yet may not lead to the openness of an environment that would be beneficial for rehabilitation. Therefore subtle navigational cues will be important to influence participants’ navigational choices by association of elements such as colour. Overall it seems possible to influence the direction of travel, to help achieve therapeutic goals while allowing for an open world. However, further work will need to be carried out to validate the results.    During the pilot study, participants commented upon: ‘Landmarks and Artificial Landmarks’, ‘User interface, with relation to maps’, ‘lighting’, ‘Colour and Atmospheric effects’ and ‘Signs’. Therefore the choices presented in Table 2 can be extracted as reassuring or discouraging cues.  Table 1: Possible navigational cues for future study Reassuring Navigational Cue Discouraging Navigational Cue Main Street Alleyway Illuminated Shadowed Good Condition (Clean, well looked after etc.) Bad Condition (Messy, destroyed etc.) Free Path (Without Obstacles) Obstructed path (With obstacles) Sun Rain Populated Unpopulated Downhill Uphill Bright Colours Dull Colours 6. REFERENCES Bowman, D.A, (2004), 3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice. Boston: London: Addison-Wesley, c2005. Emo, B, (2014), Seeing the axial line: Evidence from Wayfinding experiments. Behavioral Sciences, 4,3, pp.167-180. doi: 10.3390/bs4030167 Foltz, MA, (1998), Designing Navigable Information Spaces (Thesis of science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Retrieved from Ai.mit.edu 17th December 2015, from http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/infoarch/publications/mfoltz-thesis/node8.html Green, M, (2013), “Inattentional Blindness” & Conspicuity. Visualexpert.com. Retrieved 2nd January 2016, from http://www.visualexpert.com/Resources/inattentionalblindness.html Harvey, C, Coen, P, and Tank, D, (2012), Choice-specific sequences in parietal cortex during a virtual-navigation decision task. Nature, 484, 7392, pp. 62-68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature10918   Hodent, C, (2015), The Gamer’s Brain: How Neuroscience and UX can impact Design. Celia Hodent. Retrieved 2nd January 2016, from http://celiahodent.com/the-gamers-brain/#more-157 Lee, S, and Kline, R, (2011), Wayfinding study in virtual environments: The elderly vs. the younger-aged groups. Archnet-IJAR, 5,2, 63. Madigan, J, (2013), Why Do Colour Coded Clues in Level Design Work?. The Psychology of Video Games. Retrieved 2nd January 2016, from http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2013/09/why-do-color-coded-clues-in-level-design-work/ Moura, D, and Seif El-Nasar, (2014), Design Techniques for Planning Navigational Systems in 3-D Video Games. Computers in Entertainment, 12, 2, pp. 1-25. Doi:10. 1145/2701657.2633421 Van der Ham, IM, Faber, AE, Venselaar, M, van Kreveld, MJ, and Löffler, M, (2015), Ecological validity of virtual environments to assess human navigation ability. Frontiers In Psychology, 61-6. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00637 Vasylevska, K, Kaufmann, H, Bolas, M, and Suma, E, (2013), Flexible spaces: Dynamic layout generation for   infinite walking in Virtual Environments. IEEE Symposium On 3D User Interfaces, pp.39-42. Yeh, S., Fan, Y., Liu, P., Tsai, C., and Rizzo, A. (2012). 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Visual elements influence on navigation in virtual environments

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