![Up the down staircase: Wayfinding strategies in multi-level buildings [An article from: Journal of Environmental Psychology]](https://www.ebooknetworking.net/books/B00/0PD/bigB000PDTY1I.jpg)
Up the down staircase: Wayfinding strategies in multi-level buildings [An article from: Journal of Environmental Psychology]
Book Details
PublisherElsevier
ISBN / ASINB000PDTY1I
ISBN-13978B000PDTY19
AvailabilityAvailable for download now
Sales Rank10,474,636
MarketplaceUnited States 🇺🇸
Description
This digital document is a journal article from Journal of Environmental Psychology, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Description:
The intention of this article is to create a link between human spatial cognition research and architectural design. We conducted an empirical study with human subjects in a complex multi-level building and compared thinking aloud protocols and performance measures of experienced and inexperienced participants in different wayfinding tasks. Three specific strategies for navigation in multi-level buildings were compared. The central point strategy relies on well-known parts of the building; the direction strategy relies on routes that first head towards the horizontal position of the goal, while the floor strategy relies on routes that first head towards the vertical position of the goal. We show that the floor strategy was preferred by experienced participants over the other strategies and was overall tied to better wayfinding performance. Route knowledge showed a greater impact on wayfinding performance compared to survey knowledge. A cognitive-architectural analysis of the building revealed seven possible causes for navigation problems. Especially the staircase design was identified as a major wayfinding obstacle. Finally we address the benefits of cognitive approaches for the architectural design process and describe some open issues for further research.
Description:
The intention of this article is to create a link between human spatial cognition research and architectural design. We conducted an empirical study with human subjects in a complex multi-level building and compared thinking aloud protocols and performance measures of experienced and inexperienced participants in different wayfinding tasks. Three specific strategies for navigation in multi-level buildings were compared. The central point strategy relies on well-known parts of the building; the direction strategy relies on routes that first head towards the horizontal position of the goal, while the floor strategy relies on routes that first head towards the vertical position of the goal. We show that the floor strategy was preferred by experienced participants over the other strategies and was overall tied to better wayfinding performance. Route knowledge showed a greater impact on wayfinding performance compared to survey knowledge. A cognitive-architectural analysis of the building revealed seven possible causes for navigation problems. Especially the staircase design was identified as a major wayfinding obstacle. Finally we address the benefits of cognitive approaches for the architectural design process and describe some open issues for further research.
