Usability Evaluation Methods of Indoor Navigation Apps for People with Disabilities: A Scoping Review

More than 25% of adults in the U.S. have one or more disabilities. These disabilities hinder one’s ability to complete necessary everyday tasks such as navigating independently in indoor environments. Various tools have been designed and tested to aid disabled persons while navigating indoors including smartphone apps. However, many of the designed interfaces are not extensively researched and therefore might not meet the needs of end users. The objective of this study was to determine the types of usability evaluation methods used for indoor navigation app interfaces designed for people with disabilities and recommend a comprehensive usability method for future studies. A scoping literature review was conducted on different databases. Fifty-one articles met the inclusion criteria and were included in the analyses. Results revealed that a majority of studies used subjective data as a measure of usability, several conducted usability tests with a limited number of end users, and there was a lack of comprehensive usability evaluation methods. These limitations often led to general validations of whether the interface had acceptable usability, but they did not provide specific feedback for interface improvements. Based on these findings, a list of recommendations for future studies is provided to better assess usability of indoor navigation apps for people with disabilities.