## 5 Discussion
### Performance in Exploratory Navigation  
In this work, we used point-of-interest exploration and navigation of route planning to simulate different activities in exploratory navigation. Therefore, we designed two experimental tasks and utilized behavioral measurements to evaluate performance in them. In the exploration task, we hope to assist pedestrians in exploring more points of interest in the exploration task via our mixed-reality 3D minimap. The results show that the mean value of the collected points of interest in the simplified map mode experiment session was higher. The numbers of collected points of interest was significantly (\(p<0.005\)) higher via the simplified map. However, in the interview after the tasks, some participants mentioned that the difference between the normal mode and the simplified mode for browsing the valuable points of interest was not big, and the significant difference in collected numbers probably resulted from the high efficiency during wayfinding in exploration tasks via the simplified map mode. We consider this to have been because the mixed-reality 3D minimap could give participants a precise distribution of points of interest from a bird's-eye view, making it easier to browse many points of interest and improve the wayfinding efficiency in exploration tasks. This is also consistent with the results in the navigation task below.  
In the navigation task, unlike the free walking and self-navigation in the exploration task, we set route navigation instructions for two locations. The results showed that the mean value of the navigation time via the simplified mode indicated more efficient navigation to a statistically significant degree (\(p<0.01\)). We supposed that the simplified 3D minimap mode provided clearer route information related to landmarks, buildings, and other points of interest. From the interviews, we also found that the participants thought the simplified 3D map mode was more efficient for orientating and locating, which helped them accomplish precise route navigation.  
Figure 20: Semi-structured interview of user preferences.  
Based on the results of the two tasks, for Research Question 1, though the results in both tasks were significant, we cannot say that the simplified mixed-reality 3D minimap mode can result in better performance in exploratory navigation. We could suppose that in this work, the simplified mixed-reality 3D minimap mode could result in better efficiency in the specific navigation task. Therefore, we suggest the simplified method of the proposed 3D minimap needs to be further studied in more scenarios. For instance, we only discussed the difference between valuable and irrelevant points of interest in this work. We believe the results will show different things in other simplified criteria in different scenarios. In addition, different navigation scenarios should be considered as well. For example, in our work, the simplified minimap improved the navigation efficiency in both exploration (self-location without turn-by-turn wayfinding instruction) and navigation (assigned turn-by-turn navigation) tasks. Thus, researchers can investigate interfaces that are suitable for different navigation methods in the future.  
We supposed that based on our work, we could learn that the mixed-reality minimap has the potential to assist pedestrians in specific scenarios, such as understanding the holistic spatial distribution and point-of-interest information from a bird's view. However, whether these benefits are required all the time in all the urban exploratory navigation scenarios still needs to be discussed. For instance, the dynamic map interface might satisfy the different needs of pedestrians during urban exploration.