Accessible wayfinding and navigation: a systematic mapping study

Urban environments, university campuses, and public and private buildings often present architectural barriers that prevent people with disabilities and special needs to move freely and independently. This paper presents a systematic mapping study of the scientific literature proposing devices, and software applications aimed at fostering accessible wayfinding and navigation in indoor and outdoor environments. We selected 111 out of 806 papers published in the period 2009–2020, and we analyzed them according to different dimensions: at first, we surveyed which solutions have been proposed to address the considered problem; then, we analyzed the selected papers according to five dimensions: context of use, target users, hardware/software technologies, type of data sources, and user role in system design and evaluation. Our findings highlight trends and gaps related to these dimensions. The paper finally presents a reflection on challenges and open issues that must be taken into consideration for the design of future accessible places and of related technologies and applications aimed at facilitating wayfinding and navigation.