Visual Effects of Turning Point and Travel Direction for Outdoor Navigation Using Head-Mounted Display

We investigate the visual effects of superimposing turning points and travel directions within the user’s field of view in a navigation system using a subjective assessment procedure. Existing methods were developed without conducting subjective assessments of the effects of superimposing the turning points and travel directions on the user’s display while walking outdoors. We therefore designed a questionnaire-based subjective assessment of the use of these navigation methods. We developed an outdoor navigation system using a recently launched optical see-through head-mounted display (HMD) product that was compact and lightweight. We demonstrated that the subjective scores in terms of understanding of the turning points and the travel directions were significantly increased by the visual effects of superimposing these cues on the display. We confirmed that the HMD helps to increase user likeability of use of the navigation system while walking outdoors.