The Roles of Medium and Narrative Believability in Guided Mobile Tour Navigation

Purpose: This study investigates the role of need for cognition and narrative believability when using a mobile device to take a guided tour of a new location, informing future research and practice in both narrative design and media ecology.
Method: Experiment participants (n = 141) toured a new research facility using one of three combinations of navigation aids (a smartphone only, a brochure and a smartphone, or a brochure only) as a guide. An ordinal regression analysis and multivariate regression analysis were used to assess the relationships among navigation aids, narrative believability, need for cognition, and perceived ease of navigation.
Results: Use of a smartphone only or a brochure in tandem with a smartphone were positively related to evaluations of the narrative as highly consistent as well as perceptions that the narrative offered a high degree of coverage. However, using a brochure in tandem with a smartphone was negatively related to perceived ease of navigation, while narrative plausibility had a positive effect on perceived ease of navigation.
Conclusion: This study illustrates how different mobile devices result in a range of interpretations of the same materials and, ultimately, different levels of success in real-world navigation. Even a simple narrative can aid wayfinding if users find it sufficiently plausible. More broadly, the results suggest the need for research to facilitate the development of more engaging multimedia tour guides.