Research on Inclusive Wayfinding Systems in Transportation Hubs for Visually Impaired Older Adults

Summary

This study investigates the spatial navigation challenges faced by visually impaired older adults in complex transportation hubs, using eye-tracking and mixed-reality simulations. Findings demonstrate that age-related neurocognitive declines necessitate evidence-based universal design interventions, including enhanced visual contrast and simplified architectural geometries, to preserve independent mobility.

Abstract

As global demographics shift toward an increasingly aged society, the preservation of independent mobility and spatial navigation has emerged as a critical public health priority. This study investigates the spatial exploration behaviors of visually impaired older adults in complex airport terminals, utilizing real-world wayfinding tasks coupled with integrated eye-tracking technology. Through a comparative analysis between a visually impaired elderly cohort and a younger sighted control group, this research quantifies navigational effort via gaze angular velocity (AV), wayfinding duration, and gaze distribution heatmaps. Experimental results indicate that visually impaired older adults exhibit significantly higher gaze AV across all navigational sections, a phenomenon characterized here as a compensatory behavioral response to declining visuospatial function. However, this compensatory mechanism demonstrates a "saturation point" at structurally complex intersections, such as those with acute connection angles, where elderly participants fail to further scale their exploratory efforts. The analysis further reveals that dynamic traffic entities, specifically pedestrians, create an "attentional lock-in" effect that disproportionately suppresses peripheral awareness in older navigators. Correlating these behavioral markers with clinical indicators, including Mean Deviation (MD), Pattern Standard Deviation (PSD), and Useful Field of View (UFOV), this article establishes a logical framework for evidence-based inclusive design. Recommendations focus on geometric simplification of transit nodes, multisensory redundancy, and the integration of adaptive assistance technologies to mitigate the "environmental press" on the aging brain.

Introduction

The global transition toward an increasingly aged society represents a profound multi-disciplinary challenge for urban infrastructure, public health, and architectural engineering¹. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the population of individuals aged 65 and older is mathematically projected to reach 1.6 billion globally by 2050². Progressing in parallel to this demographic shift is a notable increase in age-related sensory and cognitive impairments³. The Lancet Global Health Commission indicates that approximately 1.1 billion people were living with untreated vision loss in 2020, a....

Protocol

All experimental procedures involving human participants were conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The study protocol was reviewed and approved by the Tsinghua University Science and Technology Ethics Committee (Medicine) (Project No. THU01-20250087). Written informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to their inclusion in the study. The consumables and the equipment used are listed in the Table of Materials.

Dual-modal experimental framework

The methodology utilized a dual-modal verification system to capture the intersection of reality and impa....

Results

Quantitative analysis of the eye-tracking data revealed a significant efficiency disparity between the primary cohorts, highlighting areas where contemporary terminal design may inadequately accommodate neurocognitive aging. Quantitative analysis revealed significant disparities in navigational efficiency between the two cohorts. The visually impaired elderly group required substantially more time to complete the security-to-gate sequence compared to the younger sighted control group (1092.9 s ± 134.5 s vs. 467........

Discussion

The transition from raw empirical data to actionable architectural intelligence requires rigorous deductive reasoning. To maintain scientific transparency, the following discussion explicitly delineates between direct behavioral observations measured in our eye-tracking and mixed-reality paradigms, and theoretical extrapolations based on established neurocognitive literature. The primary theoretical discovery of this research is the behavioral manifestation of the "Compensation Ceiling" effect. To understand the .......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Airport terminal wayfinding scenarios	Self-developed experimental setup	N/A (self-developed)	Standardized navigation task design for behavioral assessment
Microsoft HoloLens	Microsoft, USA	www.microsoft.com/hololens	Simulation of pathological visual impairment in mixed-reality conditions
OpenGL shaders	Custom programmed	www.opengl.org	Real-time rendering of simulated visual field defects
Tobii Pro Glasses 3	Tobii Pro, Sweden	www.tobii.com/products/eye-trackers/wearables/tobii-pro-glasses-3	Real-world eye-tracking data acquisition during wayfinding tasks
Tobii Pro Lab	Tobii Pro, Sweden	www.tobii.com/products/software/applications-and-tools/tobii-pro-lab	Recording and analysis of fixation, saccade, and gaze trajectory data