1 Usability of user adapted Indoor Walking Descriptions

Often business or university buildings are complex for guests who do not know the floor structure. And also students or staff members sometimes need a description to find a room in their institution. We will present a system that automatically generates indoor navigation advices adapted to the user’s knowledge of the building. These instructions are given out verbal on a portable device, e.g. a cellular phone or PDA, so the user can follow them immediately. We will discuss importance of landmarks in such a sytem and how it was implemented. A user study shows that there are significant differences between the user adapted descriptions for foreign users but not for well-known ones. Author Keywords indoor navigation, user study, automatic wayfinding instructions, automated voice navigation, landmark