Low-Vision Navigation Reveals Shortcomings of Current Navigation Frameworks: Proposals for Experiments and Design

People with low vision (PLVs) experience difficulties in spatial navigation associated with their low vision (LV) and are inadequately supported by status quo information solutions. The LV case, in which visual input is present but functionally unreliable, also falls out of scope of existing taxonomies of spatial navigation derived from mostly normally sighted subjects. We propose three perturbations through which LV adds attentional demands to navigation: we review evidence that it de-automates the task of avoiding obstacles and safely walking (vigilant locomotion), hypothesize that it strains visual search by creating uncertainty about information sources’ presence, placement, form, and accessibility (naive search), and conjecture that it lowers confidence for wayfinding decisions, encouraging backtracking and frequent confirmation (fragile decisions). Empirical evidence supports that vigilant locomotion under LV interferes with concurrent cognitive processes, especially spatial learning. We hypothesize that this interference extends to wayfinding and that difficulties in information sampling (naive search) and low metacognitive confidence (fragile decisions) additionally strain attention. Accordingly, we introduce three design aims which can help evaluate whether current and prospective wayfinding information solutions support low-vision navigation by addressing these perturbations; information should be continuous at step-level, easy to sample, and confirmatory via paired feedback. Future research should directly test these predictions in ecological contexts and investigate the possibility that acute stressors can mimic the LV-related perturbations in the general population.