The information seeking navigation interface with spatial icons for children

This study is to develop an Information Seeking Navigation Interface with Spatial Icons for children. Designing a way-finder in Human–computer Interaction (HCI) will make seeking information easier for children. Developing a spatial icon-seeking interface can assist children as they explore digital learning. It is for this reason that we designed a new user interface in 3D which assists the human user in seeking information through the way-finder. The original idea of this study arose from the fact that humans have different spatial abilities, and that means humans should benefit from using a mental map before searching for information on the Web. Children have limited information-searching skills and exhibit different information seeking behavioural patterns through different media-type interfaces. The field testing part of this study was done at Taiwan’s National Library of Public Information using its resource database. Taking into account the varying spatial abilities in children, this study uses three research impact factors: (1) Spatial Visualization, (2) Associative Memory, and (3) Spatial Memory. With a focus on these three factors, the recording of the experiment data, which was taken from elementary school students ageing from 7 to 11 years old, was conducted. The goal of this study is to assist children in building a mental map from this user interface. Through usability testing and statistical analysis, we not only can better understand the way children use the spatial iconography seeking interface, but also the underlying cognitive theory, and find out how the way finding behaviour emerges. The spatial information search system can be used as an information base to improve the development of the spatial Interface design.