TY - JOUR
T1 - Exploring Individual Differences and Building Complexity in Wayfinding
T2 - The Case of the Seattle Central Library
AU - Kuliga, Saskia
AU - Nelligan, Ben
AU - Dalton, Ruth
AU - Marchette, Steven
AU - Shelton, Amy
AU - Carlson, Laura
AU - Hölscher, Christoph
N1 - Funding Information:
We gratefully acknowledge the supportive funding from the DFG German Research Council and the former SFB/TR8 transregional research center Spatial Cognition in Bremen/Freiburg, as well as from ETH Zurich. We express our outmost gratitude to the library for allowing us to conduct two empirical wayfinding studies in the building during regular opening hours, especially to Andra Addison, Jennifer Cargal, and their colleagues. We thank the three anonymous reviewers and the editor Ann Sloan Devlin. We greatly appreciate the support of Vincent Langenfeld, Amy Clements-Stephens, Andrew Furman, Panagiotis Mavros, Evelyn Ferstl, Artem Chirkin, Matthias Standfest, Nicolas Holland, Nicholas Sheep Dalton, Michael Joos, Iuliia Osintseva, and Olaf Kammler. We thank Priscilla Licht, Vincent Langenfeld, and others for continuous proofreading. Finally, we thank the participants for their performance—even though it potentially meant feeling or being lost.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2019.
PY - 2019/6/1
Y1 - 2019/6/1
N2 - This article focuses on the interactions between individual differences and building characteristics that may occur during multilevel wayfinding. Using the Seattle Central Library as our test case, we defined a series of within-floor and between-floor wayfinding tasks based on different building analyses of this uniquely designed structure. Tracking our 59 participants while they completed assigned tasks on-site, we examined their wayfinding performance across tasks and in relation to a variety of individual differences measures and wayfinding strategies. Both individual differences and spatial configuration, as well as the organization of the physical space, were related to the wayfinding challenges inherent to this library. We also found wayfinding differences based on other, nonspatial features, such as semantic expectations about destinations. Together, these results indicate that researchers and building planners must consider the interactions among building, human, and task characteristics in a more nuanced fashion.
AB - This article focuses on the interactions between individual differences and building characteristics that may occur during multilevel wayfinding. Using the Seattle Central Library as our test case, we defined a series of within-floor and between-floor wayfinding tasks based on different building analyses of this uniquely designed structure. Tracking our 59 participants while they completed assigned tasks on-site, we examined their wayfinding performance across tasks and in relation to a variety of individual differences measures and wayfinding strategies. Both individual differences and spatial configuration, as well as the organization of the physical space, were related to the wayfinding challenges inherent to this library. We also found wayfinding differences based on other, nonspatial features, such as semantic expectations about destinations. Together, these results indicate that researchers and building planners must consider the interactions among building, human, and task characteristics in a more nuanced fashion.
KW - building complexity
KW - individual differences
KW - space syntax
KW - spatial behavior
KW - wayfinding
U2 - 10.1177/0013916519836149
DO - 10.1177/0013916519836149
M3 - Article
SN - 0013-9165
VL - 51
SP - 622
EP - 665
JO - Environment and Behavior
JF - Environment and Behavior
IS - 5
ER -