A conceptual framework for community wayfinding

We present a new integrated conceptual framework of community wayfinding, defined as the process whereby people use environmental information to locate and find their way within familiar and unfamiliar settings. Our goal in introducing this framework is to raise awareness about the pivotal role of wayfinding as an aid to identifying factors that might serve as facilitators or barriers to action and to stimulate new integrative and interdisciplinary research and practice ideas. The framework incorporates key ecological perspectives from the person-environment fit models with elements adapted from the World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, which includes all forms of human mobility, from walking to riding. Our model depicts the wayfinding process as dynamic, may change over time, and directly affects individual activities and social engagement. The conceptual framework includes environmental features, individual factors, user tools and technology, and individual-environment interaction that facilitate community wayfinding. The framework is consistent with the socio-ecological model used extensively by public health professionals to address the complex factors affecting health. This conceptual framework also sets the stage for subsequent presentations.