Informing the design of an automated wayfinding system for individuals with cognitive impairments

Individuals with cognitive impairments are often prevented from independently living, working, and fully participating in their community due to wayfinding concerns. We conducted two user studies of a mobile wayfinding aid designed to support such individuals. The first study examined usability issues related to wayfinding outdoors. The results were positive overall, but showed that the directions we used were at times too low-level, requiring strict adherence to the route and therefore highly precise message timing. The second study examined the use of landmarks to provide directions at a higher-level, as a way to overcome the limitations of the directions we were using. We found that certain types of landmark-based directions were significantly easier to follow, but individual performance varied across most direction types. The findings from both studies show that individuals with cognitive impairments would benefit from a wayfinding system that is capable of supporting customizable and adaptable direction selection.