Evaluating indoor pedestrian navigation interfaces using mobile eye tracking.

This article describes two user studies that evaluate different interface designs of indoor pedestrian navigation systems displaying landmarks. In particular, very reduced and abstract interfaces only showing route segments and landmarks are compared to depictions additionally showing floor plans. For this purpose, not only the time it took the participants to fulfill the task, but also eye-tracking data were analyzed. The first experiment (N=81) was carried out with a smartphone. In the second study (N=69), a device with a bigger screen was used so that gazes on different screen elements could be analyzed. Results show that the participants reach their destination faster with the abstract interface and, moreover, spend less visual attention on this interface.