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Hospital landscape is not a useless space within hospital buildings anymore. It is considered as a supportive area providing mental and physical peace. However, the planting design of the hospital landscape and the way it should be in order to not disrupt wayfinding performance is neglected. This paper, which is a case study, aims at investigating the effects of planting design in Kerman hospitals’ landscapes on the users’ wayfinding using space syntax techniques.

This research focuses on the effects of planting design on the users’ wayfinding in hospitals. In so doing, library research, computer simulation and analysis with the University College London (UCL) Depthmap software, and comparison techniques are used. Based on axial maps, the measures of integration, connectivity and intelligibility are considered for analysing the wayfinding process of individuals.

The findings show that planting configurations in the hospital landscape can affect individuals’ wayfinding. Integrated and regular planting design in addition to combining planted areas with the hospital buildings can pave the way for intelligible space and easier wayfinding.

According to the authors’ knowledge, the current study is the first to use the space syntax techniques in the health-care landscape architecture in terms of planting design and wayfinding. As wayfinding is an important issue in health-care spaces, the study findings can greatly help the health-care building designers and the related organizations to pay attention to the hospital landscape as much as hospital indoors.

The efficient delivery of environmental information to wayfinders in complex environments is a challenge for information designers. Wayfinding tasks can be quite strenuous and frustrating in the visual absence of dedicated wayfinding information. This study aims to explore the behaviour regarding the use of wayfinding information by navigators in complex environments.

An experiment has been conducted in which participants have performed wayfinding tasks in a spatially complex university campus. The participants were instructed to use the think-aloud protocol during the experiment. The behaviour has been recorded using the head-mounted video recorder (GoPro), mobile phone screen (audio\video) recorder and interview. Twelve university students have been selected based on the equal level of spatial ability using the Santa Barbara Sense of Direction scale. Each participant performed three wayfinding tasks to locate the unknown locations inside the campus using a mobile wayfinding application and other information sources.

The results of this study demonstrated significant behavioural preferences in acquiring wayfinding information. Most of the participants synthesised the static and mobile wayfinding information sources, while some preferred only the static ones. Gender differences have also been found for planning and route finding. This study recommends the syntheses of static and mobile wayfinding information for designing an efficient institutional wayfinding system.

The sample size has been kept small because of the qualitative exploration of the wayfinding behaviour regarding the wayfinding information syntheses behaviour. The experiment findings can be further explored with larger data set and controlled behavioural metrics. This study can help understand the user requirements in facilities management for spatially complex institutional environments.

The current findings can be further used to develop a framework for wayfinding information designers to assist them in understanding the current practices and incorporate them for improving institutional wayfinding systems. The management of the offered facilities within an institution can be further improved to make the space more efficient by saving users’ time and efforts.

Information syntheses or symbiosis of environmental information with the beacon-based digital wayfinding system is a new concept. This study explores the potential of such information syntheses for enhancing the legibility of complex institutional environments.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate similar and different wayfinding strategies used by novice and expert patrons at an academic library.

The study employed a usability study approach. In total, 12 people, places, or things were identified as important for students to be able to locate within an academic library. Students from one of three groups (high school, freshmen, and seniors) were randomly assigned a scenario requiring them to find the indicated person, place, or thing. Student researchers video recorded participants and took field notes during the wayfinding activity and conducted an interview about participant’s experience following the exercise.

Total and average time needed to locate the person, place, or thing indicated in the scenario were determined for each group. In addition, wayfinding tools (signs, maps, help desks, technology, and experience) used by participants were identified.

The research compares novice and expert wayfinding strategies. It is unique in its use of student researchers as part of a sociology class project, to collect and analyze the data.

This paper seeks to apply a systemic approach to study human‐map‐space interactions that will benefit the design of a wayfinding map.

This paper presents a case study that was based on Van Bockstaele et al.'s sociocybernetic theory as a research framework to map study. Van Bockstaele et al.'s theory suggests that an individual's behaviour derives from a cognitive system that consists of latent (background thinking process) and patent (amplified language or action that communicates with the public) action. To observe and understand an individual's action, the observer must also consider cognitive systems. Applying this theory, the process of individuals using maps to solve wayfinding tasks within the City of Fremantle, Western Australia was observed. The study involved observing 30 international students who use three maps, each of which presents iconic, symbolic, and iconic and symbolic representations, to locate four destinations in the city.

Findings suggest that external systems such as maps and the actual environment affect an individual's latent and patent actions, while their behaviour affects the way they perceive the external systems.

This paper addresses the complexity of systems involved in the process of an individual using maps to solve wayfinding tasks in the actual environment.

This study provides graphic and information designers with a substantial understanding of human‐map‐space interactions based on systemic perspectives.

The application of sociocybernetics is uncommon in map studies. This paper provides a link between the two disciplines.

Wayfinding efficiency is an extremely influential factor to improve users' library interior experience. However, few research has studied the different functions of various wayfinding signages for university library users through mobile visual experiment. To fill this gap, the purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between university library signage system design and patrons' wayfinding behavior features.

In this article, an eye movement tracking method was introduced to record eye movement data during the wayfinding process of participants in the library interior, targeting the cognition and psychology of library users in the wayfinding signage system. The visual guiding usability of landmarks, informational signages and directional signages were quantitatively tested, and the fixation on the signage system between orientation strategy users and route strategy users was compared. This study also investigated the effects of library users' spatial anxiety and environmental familiarity on their fixation on the area of interest of the wayfinding signage system using the differential test and regression.

This paper observed that informational signage had the best visual navigating competence. The difference of fixation duration and searching duration between patrons used various wayfinding strategies was significant. The informational signage was most attended by the route strategy users, and the orientation strategy users rarely focused on the directional signage. And participants with high anxiety tended to ignore the visually auxiliary function of the landmarks but paid attention to the directional signage. The participants with low anxiety could capture the landmarks that could not be easily found by the route strategy users. And participants less familiar with the environment were more sensitive to the landmarks. Furthermore, this paper offers optimization measures for university library wayfinding signage system, from the perspectives of informational signage understandability improvement, directional signage physical specification design and wayfinding assistant system with automatic landmark technology.

This article adds to the relatively sparse literature on university library user wayfinding experimental study in China. The experimental findings of this paper also have important practical implications for academic libraries' wayfinding system evaluation. The whole process could be seen as a repeatable and standard framework and methodology to inspect university library's wayfinding signage system usability and user wayfinding behavior performance.

The purpose of this paper is to profile wayfinders into homogeneous sub-groups according to their wayfinding ability, and to investigate the differences between the clusters identified and their evaluations of satisfaction.

This study uses survey data collected in a hospital in the Northern part of Italy. The survey questionnaire assessed the participants’ self-estimation of wayfinding ability in terms of wayfinding competence, wayfinding strategy and wayfinding anxiety, as well as the wayfinder’s satisfaction.

The findings propose that three factors, namely, individual orientation skills, confidence in servicescape elements and anxiety control, contribute to defining wayfinding ability. Based on these factors, cluster analysis reveals three profiles of wayfinders, as follows: the Easy Goings, the Do-it-yourselves and the Insecures. Group differentiation comes from wayfinding ability and customer satisfaction levels.

The results of this study advance the segmentation literature by analyzing different types of wayfinding ability that can lead to different satisfaction levels.

These findings will help service managers improve servicescape design and help them formulate effective targeting strategies.

While previous research outlined the importance of some factors such as gender differences, familiarity with the service environment and cognitive approaches, this study recommends the examination of the profile of visitors to the service setting to allow them to find their way more effectively.

Complex environments have a paucity of visual wayfinding information creating a strenuous situation for the new visitors. University campuses situated in the central urban areas with multi-storey structures and complex spatial layouts have poor environmental legibility. International students and visitors with diverse cultural backgrounds feel disoriented during wayfinding in these environments. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the cultural and individual differences affecting wayfinding behaviour.

An online wayfinding survey has been conducted through a questionnaire from 170 university students and visitors from Hong Kong and Pakistan. A five-point bipolar Likert scale has been used to evaluate wayfinding problems and ascribed behaviour.

The results enunciated a substantial influence of culture on the decision-making process and wayfinding behaviour. Critical differences have been documented based on the country of origin and native language. Individual-related differences (age, gender, spatial familiarity, education, etc.) were computed, where age and spatial familiarity being noted as key factors impacting the respondents’ opinion. Future exploration has been discussed for the pivotal elements regarding wayfinding information signage using computer simulations.

The investigation can be further moved towards the other complex environments with fused facilities for a better understanding of wayfinding behaviour.

The findings can be instrumental for improved access to user facilities and can reinforce the user’s trust and dependence on the institutional facility management.

In the wayfinding study, no cross-cultural (individualists vs collectivists) study has been conducted in a university campus to investigate the wayfinding difficulty and ascribed behaviour, especially when the environment is unfamiliar.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical analysis from an ethical perspective of how the concept of indigenous wayfinding and voyaging is mapped in knowledge representation, organization and discovery systems.

In this study, the Dewey Decimal Classification, the Library of Congress Subject Headings, the Library of Congress Classifications systems and the Web of Science citation database were methodically examined to determine how these systems represent and facilitate the discovery of indigenous knowledge of wayfinding and voyaging.

The analysis revealed that there was no dedicated representation of the indigenous practices of wayfinding and voyaging in the major knowledge representation, organization and discovery systems. By scattering indigenous practice across various, often very broad and unrelated classes, coherence in the record is disrupted, resulting in misrepresentation of these indigenous concepts.

This study contributes to a relatively limited research literature on representation and organization of indigenous knowledge of wayfinding and voyaging. This study calls to foster a better understanding and appreciation for the rich knowledge that indigenous cultures provide for an enlightened society.

Emergency evacuation plans are often developed under the assumption that evacuees will use wayfinding strategies such as taking the shortest distance route to their nearest exit. The purpose of this paper is to analyze empirical data from a wildfire evacuation analyzed to determine whether evacuees took a shortest distance route to their nearest exit and to identify any alternate wayfinding strategies that they may have used.

The wildfire evacuation analysis presented in this paper is the outcome of a natural experiment. A post-fire online survey was conducted, which included an interactive map interface that allowed evacuees to identify the route that they took. The survey results were integrated with several additional data sets using a GIS. Network analysis was used to compare the routes selected by evacuees to their shortest distance routes, and statistical hypothesis testing was employed to identify the wayfinding strategies that may have been used.

The network analysis revealed that 31 percent of evacuees took a shortest distance route to their nearest exit. Hypothesis testing showed that evacuees selected routes that had significantly longer distances and travel times than the shortest distance routes, and indicated that factors such as the downhill slope percentage of routes and the elevation of exits may have impacted the wayfinding process.

This research is best regarded as a spatiotemporal snapshot of wayfinding behavior during a single wildfire evacuation, but could inspire additional research to establish more generalizable results.

This research may help emergency managers develop more effective wildfire evacuation plans.

This research presents an analysis of an original data set that contributes to the broader body of scientific knowledge on wayfinding and spatial behavior during emergency evacuations.

The purpose of this study is to integrate wayfinding strategies and open innovation to examine the factors of mobile application (M-App) design.

The study formulated an M-App model from the wayfinding sense-making and open innovation perspective. Samples were collected from the M-Apps users of Airbnb.com in a survey based on the principle of snowball sampling, and 416 samples were returned in total. The hypothesis testing of the model was conducted using structural equation modeling with Linear Structural Relations.

The operators of the lodging industry should design the recommended route on the M-Apps for tourists to reach the accommodation on the map function conveniently.

The orientation of wayfinding sense-making integrates the accommodation host to mark the direction of the accommodation on the map function of M-Apps to indicate the direction of the location.

The operators of the lodging industry should design the recommended route on the M-Apps for tourists to conveniently reach the accommodation on the map function.

For the M-Apps designer of the lodging industry, devising the function with an arrow point on the map would enable tourists to check their current location handily. Moreover, the M-Apps of lodging businesses can reduce marketing expenses from the high recommendations of tourists.