Hospital Greenspaces and the Impacts on Wayfinding and Spatial Experience: An Explorative Experiment Through...

Navigating large hospitals can be very challenging due to the functional complexity as well as the evolving changes and expansions of such facilities. Hospital wayfinding issues could lead to stress, negative mood, and poor healthcare experience among patients, staff, and family members.

A survey-embedded experiment was conducted using immersive virtual environment (IVE) techniques to explore people's wayfinding performance and their mood and spatial experience in hospital circulation spaces with or without visible greenspaces.

Seventy-four participants were randomly assigned to either group to complete wayfinding tasks in a timed session. Participants' wayfinding performances were interpreted using several indicators, including task completion, duration, walking distance, stop, sign-viewing, and route selection. Participants' mood states and perceived environmental attractiveness and atmosphere were surveyed; their perceived levels of presence in the IVE hospitals were also reported.

The results revealed that participants performed better on high complexity wayfinding tasks in the IVE hospital with visible greenspaces, as indicated by less time consumed and shorter walking distance to find the correct destination, less frequent stops and sign viewing, and more efficient route selection. Participants also experienced enhanced mood states and favorable spatial experience and perceived aesthetics in the IVE hospital with visible greenspaces than the same environment without window views. IVE techniques could be an efficient tool to supplement environment-behavior studies with certain conditions noted.

Hospital greenspaces located at key decision points could serve as landmarks that positively attract people's attention, aid wayfinding, and improve their navigational experience.