Investigating Four Navigation Aids for Supporting Navigator Performance and Independence in Virtual Reality

Turn-by-turn navigation guidance is suggested to impair users' independent wayfinding in the physical world. However, whether this impairment issue also exists in a virtual environment is underexplored. We compare map-based and live view-based turn-by-turn navigation aids with two additional navigation aids, reference-based and orientation-based, designed to provide directional knowledge. The results of our within-subjects experiment indicate that turn-by-turn navigation aids performed worse in building spatial awareness than reference-based guidance in virtual reality. In unaided wayfinding, reference-based guidance helped users navigate most efficiently. Unexpectedly, orientation-based guidance yielded poor navigation performance, similar to the turn-by-turn navigation aids. We found that the key to skill impairment is navigators' tendency to rely on automated instructions. This suggests that turn-by-turn navigation aids need not be avoided, but rather that caution should be exercised to avoid the tendency of mindless instruction-following. Our qualitative findings also suggest the crucial roles of the navigation context and the suitability of the navigation aid for the context.