XR-Based Interactive
Navigation System

Create an interactive navigation system with XR to improve users’ navigation experience

Project

#Group #Academic

Final project of Human Computer Interaction Theory and Technology course during exchange period

Role

  • Arrange schedules and assign tasks as a team leader
  • Design and develop prototypes as a UX designer and engineer
  • Plan and execute usability testing as a UX researcher

Skills & Tools

  • C#
  • Unity
  • Oculus Quest

Time

09/2020 ~ 01/2021​

Problems

A significant number of traffic accidents has been attributed to navigation systems. After research, a key factor became apparent: contemporary screen-based navigation systems could divert users’ attention from real-time traffic conditions, potentially resulting in accidents. While voice navigation systems reduce distraction, their instructions tend to be vague, contributing to confusion among users.

Goal

Design an innovative navigation method that enhances navigation efficiency while ensuring user safety.

Solution

To enable users to access navigation information while observing the road conditions simultaneously, we developed an Extended Reality (XR) navigation system utilizing a head-mounted display.

For more objective results, we simulated AR effects in VR scenes to eliminate users’ familiarity with the route.

Map

 We first created a fake city scene.

Improved Existing Navigation Method

To enhance today’s navigation method, we developed the first prototype by including a small map which displayed the real-time location of users within their view during navigation.

Mix-Mode Navigation Methods

While previous navigation systems mostly focused on a single navigation method, we believed AR could provide users with richer information. Hence, we designed and categorized 4 navigation methods based on local or global characteristics.

Local Navigation

Global Navigation

Local navigation provided clear directions and global navigation offered information about users’ relative positions to the destination throughout their journey. By combining these two navigation modes, we designed four innovative mix-mode navigation prototypes:

  • Light beam + Road highlight
  • Light beam + Fixed arrows at corners
  • User-following absolute arrow + Road highlight
  • User-following absolute arrow + Fixed arrows at corners

Final Prototypes

To verify the effect of our proposed navigation system, we compared the four mix-mode navigation methods and the improved existing navigation method with a traditional map.

In summary, we developed 6 scenarios:

  • Control group
    • A traditional map
  • Experimental group
    • A map with user’s real-time location (improved existing navigation method)
    • 4 mix-mode navigation methods with a traditional map

Demo - Mix-Mode Navigation Method

Road Highlight + User-Following Absolute Arrow

Testing & Analyses

We conducted usability testing and user interviews on 12 participants to evaluate our designed navigation systems.

Usability Testing

We set a destination in the scene and recorded the time users spent on navigation.

One-Way ANOVA

To understand the impact of our designed navigation systems on users’ navigation performance, we conducted one-way ANOVA on 3 groups:

  • The traditional navigation method
  • The improved existing navigation method
  • The mix-mode navigation methods

The independent variable was the navigation method and the dependent variable was the time spent on navigation.

Result

As p-value was lower than 0.05, we concluded that the impact of our designed navigation methods on users’ navigation performance was statistically significant.

Two-Way ANOVA

To gain a deeper understanding of the interaction between global navigation and local navigation, as well as their individual impacts on user navigation performance, we conducted two-way ANOVA on the 4 mix-mode navigation methods.

Result

As p-values were greater than 0.05, the influence of different global/local navigation methods and their interaction on users’ navigation performance was not significant.

User Interview

In addition to calculating the frequency of user collisions with cars, we also conducted user interviews to gather feedback on our navigation system from a subjective perspective.

Result

  • Users were hit by cars only in the traditional navigation method cases.
  • Most users primarily utilized local navigation, with global navigation serving as a secondary method for navigation.
  • The effect of light beam was better than user-following absolute arrow among global navigation methods
  • The effect of different local navigation methods was quite the same.

Conclusion

Our designed navigation system had shown a significant reduction in the occurrence of accidents, and most users provided positive feedback on the innovative mix-mode navigation systems. They reported that local navigation offered clear directions and global navigation could alleviate their uncertainty throughout the trips. 

Based on the experimental results, we could further deduce that the most effective navigation system was the mix-mode one combining a light beam with fixed arrows at corners.

Reflections & Learnings

This was my first time conducting a comprehensive usability test to gather user feedback on my design. It allowed me to objectively assess the effectiveness and accessibility on of my design.

While our innovative mix-mode navigation systems received positive feedback from users, we had also identified several areas that could be improved.

Experiment

  • There were some uncertain factors that could potentially influence the experimental results, such as individual differences (gender, age, innate navigation ability, familiarity with HMD) and environmental factors (temperature, brightness).
  • Since the destination remained constant and users could recall the route, we were unable to assess different navigation methods on the same user.
  • We overlooked testing the impact of a singular navigation method (either global or local navigation) on users’ navigation performance.

Design

Some users mentioned that the small map might obstruct their vision, affecting their navigation experience. Regarding how to seamlessly integrate virtual objects into the physical environment and create natural interactions between users and virtual objects, I believe this is a highly noteworthy issue in the field of human-computer interaction in the future.

For more details about the raw code, please refer to the Github repository.

Github
Problems
Goal
Solution
Final Prototypes
Testing & Analyses
Reflections