Customizing Directions in an Automated Wayfinding System for Individuals with Cognitive Impairment

Alan Liu, Harlan Hile, Gaetano Borriello, Pat Brown, Mark Harniss, Henry Kautz and Kurt Johnson

Eleventh International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2009)
Pittsburgh, PA, USA, October 26-28, 2009

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Abstract

Individuals with cognitive impairments would prefer to live independently, however issues in wayfinding prevent many from fully living, working, and participating in their community. Our research has focused on designing, prototyping, and evaluating a mobile wayfinding system to aid such individuals. Building on the feedback gathered from potential users, we have implemented the system's automated direction selection functionality. Using a decision-theoretic approach, we believe we can create better wayfinding experience that assists users to reach their destination more intuitively than traditional navigation systems. This paper describes the system and results from a study using system-generated directions that inform us of key customization factors that would provide improved wayfinding assistance for individual users.