Smartphoneless context-aware indoor navigation

Indoor environments like hospitals are typically very complex and hard to navigate even for healthy individuals. Factors like bad health status, higher stress level, and possible impairments can make the orientation in hospitals even more challenging. We describe the evolution of context-sensitive navigation system that provides adaptive indoor navigation without forcing users to use sophisticated smartphones or other specialized personal navigation devices. Instead, various networked navigation terminal installed at appropriate spots in the indoor environment are used to guide users to their destination. User study (N=10) and on-site study in a big hospital have been conducted. Prototypes including hospital visit preparation web site, smart kiosk and waiting room kiosk, were developed and evaluated. These prototypes have been evaluated with target user audience, LoFi prototype (N=6) and HiFi prototype (N=12). The results suggest usability and utility of our navigation systems for the target user audience.