Navigational Integration: Enhancing User Experience Through Illustration-Driven Wayfinding in a Multi-storied Building in Real and Augmented Environments

Navigating a multi-storied building without a proper signage system can overwhelm and frustrate visitors, leading to a poor user experience. Finding specific offices, restrooms, elevators, and emergency exits can be challenging and intimidating, especially for first-time visitors. This can result in worry, delay in decision making, dilemma, leading to a negative user experience. In this paper we have described the results of an experimental study done to understand the effectiveness of an illustration based indoor navigation experience in real and augmented environments of a newly constructed building without any signage system in place. The main goal of this research was to understand how illustration in a building can enhance way-finding and effectively enable a user to navigate in a space. One approach to this experiment is to integrate navigation systems with colors, icons, forms and illustrations. This experiment further included visual aids, such as floor maps and directional signs, informational signs, statutory warning signs, etc. to enable a better understanding of the building’s layout and easy accessibility to the intended destinations. This experiment was further validated with user studies and survey data from 35 participants which were analyzed along with interviews and observational empirical studies. The Second approach to the problem was dealt using Augmented Reality (AR) techniques with indoor space mapping and recreating the entire real world scenario to test the effectiveness before final implementation. In conclusion, the results suggest that incorporating graphics into navigation systems can significantly improve the user experience in multi-storied buildings, along with usage of technological driven augmented environments. However, there may be challenges when merging large scale navigation systems with illustrations along with traditional signage systems, due to cost feasibility and other issues. Visitors can navigate the building more quickly, effectively, and confidently by providing precise and understandable directions. Careful planning and addressing integration issues can create a more user-friendly environment for all visitors.