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Wayfinding: Back to Basics

Dutch sensibility marks a “waysigning” guru’s wayfinding systems.

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I think a big problem is that designers aren’t thinking about how people use signs, but rather, about how they are designed,” said Paul Mijksenaar, of Amsterdam, Netherlands-based Bureau Mijksenaar (pronounced “meek-sen-ar”).

This matter-of-fact statement underlines the 60-year-old graphic and industrial designer’s practical approach to wayfinding and his concern about wayfinding systems worldwide. Even in signage, function and use can take a back seat to aesthetics. But when it comes to navigating a hospital or the world’s largest airports, fundamental considerations should take precedence — not the least of which is directing people from one place to another, quickly, with minimal stress.

Wayfinding 101

In a lecture to design students at the Columbus (OH) College of Art and Design, Mijksenaar, who is also a professor of visual-information design at Delft University in the Netherlands, assessed his role as a wayfinding designer: “I think of myself more as a plumber than a designer, probably because a lot of people come to me only after making a mess of their building.”

Ideally, early building-design discussions should consider the wayfinding system. He suggested that effective, “intuitive” architecture requires less signage and more architectural elements that improve communication.

Bureau Mijksenaar, for example, has initially been involved with many projects, including Arnhem Railways Station in the Netherlands, a new museum being built in the Netherlands and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam (in which the firm consulted about flow and exhibition route issues before the architect even became involved!).

More often than not, however, wayfinding is considered after the building is erected. But, regardless of timing, designers should approach wayfinding for a museum, hospital, airport or any other building similarly: Devise a logical system that quickly, understandably and easily guides visitors through the space.

“The only differences are really in infrastructure and in psychology,” said Mijksenaar. For instance, hospital visitors are more anxious than museum visitors.

Thus, the design process should proceed logically:

1. Create a flow chart that shows the process, where the system’s points are and where to go from each point.

2. Determine what information to provide to the public and at what stage in the process.

3. Ask questions, such as: “How can it be made more comprehensive, yet simpler?” “How can the amount of information on each decision point be reduced?”

4. At the end of the process, categorize all elements into three areas (such as ground transportation, departure and arrival) to assist viewers. Only then should color coding, lighting and other design elements be considered.

Case in point: Schiphol Airport

Bureau Mijksenaar’s ongoing work for Amsterdam’s Schiphol (pronounced “ship-hol”) Airport demonstrates how carefully planned design leads to a successful wayfinding system — and even sets the bar for others to follow. Although the sign system’s design was ahead of its time when it was installed in the 1960s, the airport had added new terminals and extensions.

Thus, the project manager sought help from Bureau Mijksenaar in 1990 to update and expand the signage. “The problem wasn’t that the signage was awful or bad, but that the building was getting more complex to navigate,” Mijksenaar explained.

With carte blanche to study the existing situation and devise a solution, the firm’s designers spent a year taking inventory and finding the system’s strengths and weaknesses.

“I’m a problem-solver; I’m not there to show my own ego and bring something new because it’s me,” Mijksenaar said. “If you keep the strong points [of the existing design], it provides continuity for the passengers.” In Schiphol’s case, the strengths included:

* Good contrast of bright yellow and green colored signs in a neutral environment;

* The use of circular black arrows in a white circle, which contrast with a colored background;

* Illuminated lightboxes placed throughout the area;

* Consistency of highly visible suspended signs viewable from a great distance;

* Signs located in the center of the flow and not to the side; and

* Signs perpendicular, rather than parallel, to the flow.

But the system had its weaknesses, including:

* Large gaps between the standard, right-placed arrows and the left-placed messages;

* No order in directions (left, straight ahead or right), but in alphabetical order, which makes the sign layout rather messy.

* Bi-colored coding of Dutch (always black) versus English (always white), which was often indiscernible from the background;

* Confusing layout when different type sizes indicate primary and secondary information; and

* No pictograms for non-English foreign passengers.

The new system design updates the color-coding function, adds pictograms and changes terminology, which creates a new system with the feel of the old one, but with a more sensible approach. Yellow signs provide arrivals and departure information; blue signs refer to shopping and restaurant/café facilities; anthracite denotes waiting areas; and green references escape routes. The new escape-route network includes extra-large signs, repeated at 50-meter intervals, which guide visitors quickly to the exits.

Schiphol’s signage includes 2,400 illuminated signs and more than 100 exit signs.

Schiphol is now considered a benchmark by which other systems are judged. Because of Schiphol’s success, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) hired the firm to design a new wayfinding system for its three airports (LaGuardia, JFK and Newark). A new system at Columbus (OH) International Airport has also recently adopted the “manual” to create a new wayfinding system. And, on a lighter note, director Steven Spielberg tapped the firm to create a Port Authority-like system for his latest film, The Terminal, in which the set replicates the system down to the last detail.

Understanding the user

As elementary as it sounds, a key to developing successful wayfinding is to put oneself in the user’s seat. When conducting a survey for Baltimore’s airport, Mijksenaar gave the director and staff a passenger’s-eye view of the wayfinding system’s shortcomings, letting them find their way from a gate (as arriving passengers) to the parking garage.

“The signs didn’t help them, as I had noticed the day before,” Mijksenaar noted. “But it worked as an eye opener: The director told me he had worked at the airport for almost 30 years, but never realized there were so many problems.”

In fact, even some of today’s well-planned wayfinding designs can get lost in translation. For example, at Schiphol, Bureau Mijksenaar tested a new wayfinding system in the airport’s three parking lots (previously a confusing mix of colors that passengers had difficulty remembering or differentiating among the three parking lots).

The design firm used symbols, rather than pictograms, with three themes — Holland, sports and international cities — and every parking section was denoted by a corresponding mascot (such as the Statue of Liberty, etc.). Unfortunately, the test group didn’t understand many international city icons, so the firm swapped the city icons for more recognizable transportation symbols, along with the sports and Holland themes, and the system is now very successful.

Additionally, use neutral elements that allow visitors to gradually acclimate to the new system. For example, three introductory signs that have no key function (such as a welcome sign or one that gives an overview of the facilities) will get visitors’ feet wet, so to speak, and you can then start implementing the new system in greater scope.

Mijksenaar cautioned: “If people get anxious and stressed, they will immediately forget what they have just learned and fall back to routine behavior.” Or they’ll resort to asking a person for help, thereby negating the signage’s usefulness.

Elements of design

Mijksenaar stressed that font, color coding and pictograms should be considered only after research has been completed, and the system has been mapped out in the most efficient, sensible way possible. He suggests the following for effective use of design elements:

* Color coding: Color should make sense and clearly communicate an information category.

* Terminology: Assume that visitors know nothing about the facility and use terminology that is easily understandable to everyone.

* Fonts: Don’t use more than one font, and stick to such sans-serif typefaces as Frutiger, Clearview, Gill or Meta.

* Pictograms: Don’t rely too much on pictograms; supplement with text, especially with less familiar functions.

Legibility, on the other hand, is a complex subject that encompasses all the above-mentioned elements, plus color contrast of type, background and environment, and use of lighting, etc.

“Black and white is the perfect contrast, but if it’s in a white environment, you lose the whole sign,” Mijksenaar explained.

Likewise, in a glass-filled environment, transparent signage, though attractive, will not likely help visitors navigate. For instance, he cited the glass wayfinding system at architect Frank Gehry’s newly minted Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles as beautiful, but essentially ineffective, because it’s literally too transparent for visitors to use.

A study conducted by JD Power and Associates for PANYNJ found that travelers based customer satisfaction equally on the “findability” of gates, airport facilities (restaurants and restrooms) and ground-transportation services. Based on this information, Bureau Mijksenaar created a system that broke communication down to three categories and took a few color cues from Schiphol to devise corresponding color-coding schemes:

1. Black information on a yellow background for signage depicting check-in desks, gates and baggage carousels;

2. Yellow letters on a black background for signs indicating airport facilities; and

3. White letters on a green background for signs leading to ground transportation and parking areas.

Compared to the previous signage — mostly black and white, with little differentiation between categories — the new system is legible, understandable and, most importantly, effective. Although only half the signs are in place thus far, frequently conducted surveys show increasing satisfaction with the new system.

Sign construction

Mijksenaar admitted he’s more interested in creating sensible systems with the right content than in specifying the signs’ construction or technology. He prefers to express what he wants to achieve and then work with the manufacturer to determine the best method of production, taking into account the project’s unique architecture and budget.

That said, he is adamant about illuminated signage, noting, “Illuminated signage is necessary. Even in well-lit environments, non-illuminated signage will get buried.” He adds that designers can often get away with creating smaller signs if they are illuminated, because visitors can see them from greater distances.

Mijksenaar prefers borderless or frameless signs suspended from ceilings for optimum visibility and functionability. And most signs he specifies are aluminum lightboxes, internally illuminated by standard TL lamps and acrylic, white, translucent text screens, and covered by translucent, colored 3M foil. White parts of the images become cutouts in the colored foil that show the white screen; black messages are decals applied to the colored foil; and colored messages (such as yellow text on a black background) are also cutouts applied to the white cutout spaces of the black foil. In parking-garage signage, he has found that aluminum signs covered with an opaque, retro-reflecting material reflect cars’ headlights and sunlight effectively.

Setting the standard

Although outspoken, Mijksenaar is still only one sign designer among many, in a world full of hospitals, airports and other complex public spaces where wayfinding systems — in all shapes and forms — exist. That doesn’t, however, stop him from pursuing wayfinding perfection one step at a time. For example, he talks about the possibility of making buildings and structures more intuitive, thereby potentially eliminating the need for any signage at all.

“It’s a strange goal,” he admitted, adding, “If we ever get there, I guess I’m out of a job.”

For now, he finds new ways to reduce sign proliferation. His firm is investigating the use of cell phones to navigate buildings, though research will take several years.

More urgently, the Dutch designer hopes to develop a standard system of colors and symbols for national or international use. In other words, visitors to a hospital in Ohio would find a similar wayfinding system at a hospital in Michigan, Texas or California, or at different cities in the Netherlands, in much the way that his airport manual is now being adopted by several airports. Of course, an umbrella organization, rather than individual designers, will determine the standards.

In the Netherlands, where his firm has developed 10 different wayfinding systems for 10 hospitals in 10 years, he acknowledges that standardization is a new concept, even for him. But with offices now in Amsterdam and the city formerly known as New Amsterdam (New York), he’s positioned to approach the task head on.

With recognition from the design community, including a 2003 Honor Award from the Society of Environmental Graphic Designers for his Port Authority work, he may yet achieve his goals. In the meantime, he measures his firm’s success in more basic terms: “A wayfinding system’s success is simple: If nobody notices the signs and gets to the destination, I’ve done my job.”

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