Unlocking context-aware mobile map adaptation: a VR navigation user study

As maps have become indispensable for many of our everyday mobility activities, research on context-aware mobile map adaptation has become increasingly relevant. Empirical evidence on the effectiveness of the design of context-aware mobile maps is still underexplored, but increasing slowly. We report on a virtual reality study with 54 participants where we assessed mobile map adaptation for map-assisted navigation tasks. We manipulated environmental context (i.e. light and heavy traffic) and map adaptation, comparing an adapted map that masked task-irrelevant points of interest (POIs) with a non-adapted map that provided all available POIs. Participants were asked to search for and navigate in the virtual environment to varying POIs (e.g. restaurant, coffee shop, etc.). Heavy traffic affected participants' task completion time, particularly locomotion time, and significantly increased participants' self-reported cognitive workload, agitation, satisfaction, and control. The adapted map provided only partial evidence for its ability to support map users to complete the navigation tasks in heavy traffic. We found participants' individual and group differences, predominantly their sense of direction, as significant human factors to consider for designing maps that assist navigation tasks.