## 5 Discussion
### Impact of Navigation Aid: Cognitive Load and Wayfinding Strategy
#### 5.2.3. Navigation Aid and Wayfinding Strategy: Importance of Landmarks  
The qualitative data from the interview and observation notes showed that most participants in the control group (using Google Maps) focused more on landmarks. Google Maps did not provide indoor navigation at all, and the outdoor navigation within the campus was not great as most building names were not provided on the map, so they relied on direct experience. Whereas participants using MazeMap did not focus on landmarks around them and relied on the app. According to qualitative data, participants who did not focus on landmarks thought they were lost and made more wrong turns. This difference in focus on landmarks is also highlighted in research by [PERSON] et al. [48]. They found that participants using smartphone-based AR aids paid less attention to environmental objects such as buildings compared to participants using 2D maps. Total wrong directions are the only parameter where the control group performed slightly better than the experiment group (see Table 1). Although it is a very minor difference, a large sample size might have produced different results. This finding is consistent with [15; 62; 63], who found that participants using GPS-based mobile navigation systems made more mistakes/direction errors and provided fewer details of landmarks than participants who used local signs or direct experience for wayfinding. Moreover, [PERSON] et al. [15] found that participants using mobile navigation apps rated wayfinding tasks as more difficult compared to direct-experience participants. The finding from our experiment also showed that the workload parameter (NASA TLX scores) for the experiment group (mean = 43.71) was slightly higher as compared to the control group (mean = 40.23). However, based on results from our experiment there was not much difference in total wrong directions taken by the control (mean = 2.00) and experiment groups (mean = 2.19). Moreover, results from our experiment also showed a strong and statistically significant correlation between total wrong direction and SWR score (\(r\) = 0.518, \(p\) < 0.05). Based on previous research and our findings, wayfinding strategy affects the workload and wayfinding performance. Although, more quantitative research is required to prove it. However, it is important to explore and improve wayfinding strategies as participants who focus on landmarks perform better.  
To conclude, in this study, the mobile-based outdoor and indoor-outdoor navigation aids did not affect the perceived workload and wayfinding performance of participants in the university campus wayfinding task, but it impacted their cognitive load and wayfinding strategy (RQ1). To summarize the above discussion, the navigation aid for university campus wayfinding can be improved by improving usability and technical issues in the app and following design guidelines to reduce the cognitive load of users. We know from Section 5.1 that workload is related to wayfinding performance; thus, higher performance can be achieved by designing navigation aids that reduce the cognitive load of participants. The integration of appropriate landmarks in university campus navigation apps can decrease the cognitive load on the wayfinders [64; 65] and help users increase their environmental awareness and spatial recognition ability [65; 66]. Landmark-based campus wayfinding solutions can increase the efficiency and reliability of such applications [65].