How Street–Building Geometry Modulates the Effectiveness of Smartphone Map Orientation Methods in Direction Judgment

Abstract

This study investigates how variations in street patterns and building arrangements, combined with the orientation display methods of smartphone map applications—specifically North-Up and Heading-Up—influence users' map-reading performance. By establishing street configurations that combine simple or complex building shapes with various intersection geometries, the study isolated these factors to examine their respective impacts on self-localization. Using a Virtual Reality (VR) environment with a head-mounted display, 22 participants performed self-orientation tasks across eight experimental conditions. These conditions combined the two map display methods with four distinct street configurations, created by hybridizing two intersection types (orthogonal vs. skewed) and two building types (uniform vs. diverse). Analysis revealed that the Heading-Up orientation consistently resulted in shorter self-localization times than the North-Up orientation, with this difference being particularly pronounced in skewed intersections. In contrast, environments composed of orthogonal intersections and uniform building shapes led to longer task completion times, suggesting a lack of salient visual cues. Conversely, orthogonal intersections combined with diverse building shapes significantly facilitated self-localization.

Keywords: Map Application, Self-localization, Street Configuration, Virtual Environment, HMD

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1007956