Wayfinding is a user-centered theory of information design most associated with navigating physical spaces. (Passini) Airport signage, subway maps, and even the aisle markers in your local supermarket all function as aids to wayfinding.
Most of us interact with wayfinding systems of one sort or another on a daily basis and scarcely realize we are doing so. If you live and work in a major population center, your daily commute may involve navigating multiple interconnecting highways and a collection of surface streets. Once inside your workplace, you very well might encounter a maze of corridors and offices, perhaps with interior space further divided into different departments and areas of cubicles. If you’ve been making that same commute for months or years and working in the same physical space, you likely don’t think too much about the route you drive or the way the office is laid out. But to anyone who is perhaps visiting your workplace for the first time, everything from highway markers to interior office signage would be very important to ensure they arrive where they need to go at the time they need to be there.
As users of wayfinding systems, we rarely consider what goes into creating them or keeping them current. But designing one involves many factors. Detailed knowledge of the physical space to which it pertains is the first ingredient, and it is joined by an understanding of the people who will need to navigate that space and for what purposes. Does a variety of purposes for being in a particular space create more than one distinct population of users, for example patients and hospital personnel, or airline passengers and airport employees? If so, there will need to be a hierarchy of these groups, and the designer will need to understand whose needs to prioritize in what ways and in which areas when creating a system. (Wayfinding Is Where Place Meets Information Design | SEGD)
Knowledge of how the various user groups are most likely to best receive information and use it to make decisions is also crucial. Especially in a situation where there may be language barriers, it may be necessary to rely on imagery and symbols in addition to or in place of words. The goal is to make the system universally accessible.
Gathering all the appropriate data may be an enormous task, but a thorough understanding of the space and its users will allow the design of a better wayfinding system.
Works Cited
Wayfinding Is Where Place Meets Information Design | SEGD. segd.org/wayfinding-where-place-meets-information-design. Accessed 12 Oct. 2022.
Passini, Romedi. “Wayfinding Design: Logic, Application and Some Thoughts on Universality.” Design Studies, vol. 17, no. 3, Elsevier BV, July 1996, pp. 319–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/0142-694x(96)00001-4.
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