The application of environmental design principles is suggested to provide the necessary structure by which an observer can mentally organize a virtual environment into a spatial hierarchy capable of supporting wayfinding tasks. This division should be hierarchical in nature. Orientation is very critical to effective wayfinding. The wayfinder must always be properly oriented with the space. If disoriented, new spatial knowledge may be encoded erroneously and existing spatial knowledge may be difficult or impossible to apply to wayfinding problems.
Directional cues can prevent or minimize such disorientation.
This information can be supplied in the form of directional landmarks or independently, as in a compass. The importance of maps to spatial knowledge acquisition cannot be overlooked. Ideally, this knowledge should be flexible, as if the observer had obtained it directly from experience. However, navigators of virtual worlds are often not given enough exposure to any one world to develop this form of knowledge. The provision of a virtual map is intended to present spatial information in such a way as to produce a flexible, orientation-independent representation of the virtual environment.