Implications of Eye-Tracking Data for Wayfinding and Urban Design : The Case of Post-socialist New Belgrade Block

Eye-tracking experiments have enabled the development of powerful artificial intelligence-based software tools, allowing in silico research into human pre-attentive processing of design solutions in public spaces. While commonly used by advertisers and retailers to drive consumption, these tools also hold the potential for creating better environments. A significant advancement lies in using eye tracking and simulation software to predict walkability in urban settings. By identifying hotspots where users fixate, and correlate with urban or architectural design elements, these tools can provide insights into potential walkability and offer guidelines for movement. This paper examines wayfinding and urban design in one New Belgrade block in post-socialist Belgrade from the perspective of pedestrian users. The study area was selected based on visual and perceptual ambiguities that lead to wayfinding and orientation challenges for pedestrians. The researcher acted as a user, recording pedestrian movements through the block on video. The video recordings were then extracted into images and analyzed using 3M VAS software to detect visual interactions through heatmaps, hotspots, and gaze sequences. The results revealed various detections, from the impact of urban furniture and pavements to the positioning of benches and the use of colour or materials in public spaces. These findings suggest ways to modify environmental stimuli to enhance walking experiences. As a contribution, this research demonstrates how simulation design approaches in public spaces can guide transformations to create more liveable, legible, and safer environments for walking, particularly in the context of post-socialist transformations.