{"title":"Narrating the route: route memorability in navigation instructions augmented with narrative–results from a user study","authors":"Lydia Youngblood, Georg Gartner","doi":"10.1080/17489725.2023.2265871","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTFrom oral histories to mnemonic devices, humans have an excellent ability to remember object sequences and their relationships inside of narratives. In pedestrian wayfinding, remembering landmarks and their relationships is considered key to learning routes. This research explores whether augmenting verbal route instructions with a narrative increases the memorability of a route. Narrative theory is applied as a framework to develop narrative-based navigation instructions, which were tested in a field study (N = 18). After learning a route, participants recalled the route verbally, completed a photo-based landmark sequencing task and discussed their answers. One week later, a route recognition task and a second photo-based landmark sequencing task was completed online. Results show few significant differences between the two groups when compared quantitatively. However, during interviews, the narrative group repeatedly cited the narrative when remembering the route. The results suggest that incorporating narratives into route directions can be further explored, and that some novel direction types may not be well-measured using quantitative methods. This research confirms the prowess of landmark-based instructions to facilitate route memory, contributes to the growing body of work augmenting landmark-based route directions with detailed information, and further encourages designers to consider alternate route communication methods.KEYWORDS: Narrativepedestrian wayfindingroute memorabilityfield study Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Notes1. A weak causal relationship might be said to exist: turning onto ‘Bridge street’ might be impossible without first crossing the bridge, for example, but this seems a stretch. Additionally, the user could be considered a character, but there is no guarantee of transformation, nor is navigating a non-habitual event.2. Modelling the meaning of museum stories. Remembering routes is affected by primacy and recency effects, two phenomena found in the recall sequential lists (Hilton, Wiener, and Johnson Citation2021). Items at the beginning and end of the list are more likely to be remembered than items in the middle (Baddeley Citation1999; Reisberg Citation2010). Introducing an active delay, where the user is occupied with some other task, can reduce this effect (Reisberg Citation2010).","PeriodicalId":44932,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Location Based Services","volume":"13 9","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Location Based Services","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17489725.2023.2265871","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"TELECOMMUNICATIONS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACTFrom oral histories to mnemonic devices, humans have an excellent ability to remember object sequences and their relationships inside of narratives. In pedestrian wayfinding, remembering landmarks and their relationships is considered key to learning routes. This research explores whether augmenting verbal route instructions with a narrative increases the memorability of a route. Narrative theory is applied as a framework to develop narrative-based navigation instructions, which were tested in a field study (N = 18). After learning a route, participants recalled the route verbally, completed a photo-based landmark sequencing task and discussed their answers. One week later, a route recognition task and a second photo-based landmark sequencing task was completed online. Results show few significant differences between the two groups when compared quantitatively. However, during interviews, the narrative group repeatedly cited the narrative when remembering the route. The results suggest that incorporating narratives into route directions can be further explored, and that some novel direction types may not be well-measured using quantitative methods. This research confirms the prowess of landmark-based instructions to facilitate route memory, contributes to the growing body of work augmenting landmark-based route directions with detailed information, and further encourages designers to consider alternate route communication methods.KEYWORDS: Narrativepedestrian wayfindingroute memorabilityfield study Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Notes1. A weak causal relationship might be said to exist: turning onto ‘Bridge street’ might be impossible without first crossing the bridge, for example, but this seems a stretch. Additionally, the user could be considered a character, but there is no guarantee of transformation, nor is navigating a non-habitual event.2. Modelling the meaning of museum stories. Remembering routes is affected by primacy and recency effects, two phenomena found in the recall sequential lists (Hilton, Wiener, and Johnson Citation2021). Items at the beginning and end of the list are more likely to be remembered than items in the middle (Baddeley Citation1999; Reisberg Citation2010). Introducing an active delay, where the user is occupied with some other task, can reduce this effect (Reisberg Citation2010).
期刊介绍:
The aim of this interdisciplinary and international journal is to provide a forum for the exchange of original ideas, techniques, designs and experiences in the rapidly growing field of location based services on networked mobile devices. It is intended to interest those who design, implement and deliver location based services in a wide range of contexts. Published research will span the field from location based computing and next-generation interfaces through telecom location architectures to business models and the social implications of this technology. The diversity of content echoes the extended nature of the chain of players required to make location based services a reality.