Landmarks and a Hiking Ontology to Support Wayfinding in a National Park During Different Seasons

This chapter describes the results of an empirical study aiming to provide additional knowledge on human verbal descriptions of routes and landmarks. The purpose of the present study is also to provide a theoretical basis for the design and implementation of our terrain navigator — a Location Based Service (LBS) for hikers. The central question regarding a terrain navigator concerns what kinds of spatial concepts and terms people use when hiking, and whether the concepts and terms are different from previous studies on route descriptions that have mostly been carried out in urban environments. We are also interested in what kind of role the seasons play in navigating; whether we would need remarkably different navigational instructions during winter compared to summertime. Altogether ten subjects participated in our thinking aloud experiment during summer conditions and another ten during snowy winter conditions. The landmarks were included in most of the propositions (79 % in the summer and 70 % in the winter). The analyzed propositions were classified into landmark groups and formalized as a hiking ontology, that also covers modalities. The results of this empirical study emphasize the role of landmarks in wayfinding when hiking during both summer and winter.

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