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Falls Creek is a ski-in, ski-out resort in north-eastern Victoria, Australia. Historically, the focus of activity has been winter sports, but the resort has now been turned into a four season, vibrant and sustainable village.

At the end of 2006, Falls Creek Resort Management (FCRM) send out a RFT to ‘Replace Wayfinding Signage’ in the winter sport village of Falls Creek, in Victoria, Australia.

This RFT described their objective as:

This was further described as:

• Assist users in navigating by: informing, directing and identifying
• Protect the safety of the public
• Visually enhance the environment
• Promote entities, events and functions
• Strongly communicate Falls Creek’s unique character
• Improve the functionality, versatility and durability of the sign system

Although the objectives created enough space to develop a good wayshowing/wayfinding system, it was followed by a description of existing signs, their quantities and which of these needed to be replaced with new hardware; treating the project as a signage exercise, not as a wayfinding one.

In preparation of our tender response, ID/Lab did a preliminary survey of the village. It was clear that the existing signage hardware – ranging from the VIC-Roads traffic signs to directional signage in the village and from entry statements to promotional business signage- was a collection of individually designed and implemented structures. The directional signage confused more than it informed, and there was no system to what information was provided where and how.

Unlike the other five tender submitters, we did not put forward any design options. Any concepts at this stage would be ‘pretty pictures’ only. It is impossible to provide meaningful design concepts, without having in-depth knowledge about the organisation’s exact requirements and associated performance specifications.

ID/Lab presented a business case showing the operational and economical benefits of a holistically developed wayfinding system. The Resort Management understood that, while the up-front time and cost involved in researching and producing such a system may be higher, the end result would provide better results and possible significant long term savings – using less signage hardware, better designed to utilise common components, withstand abuse and minimise maintenance. We got the order……

Strategy Development

The first step in the development of the strategy was to emerge ourselves into the environment. We wanted to feel the village, understand how it operated, both in summer and ‘under snow’. Next step was to extract information from the main stakeholders; what had their experience been, what business objectives did they have, and how did they see the village work best. This was done through interviews, with groups ranging from resort staff, lift operators, bus drivers, tourist information, restaurant and hotel owners, through to accommodation providers, urban planners, architects, park rangers, emergency services, Chamber of Commerce, ski, walking and mountain bike clubs.

We analysed a number of wayfinding tasks, where we set people a certain destination, and observed what actions they took to reach that destination. Although relatively labour intensive, it was seen as an integral component of the strategy development. One of the outcomes was understanding the difference in navigating the steep, mountain roads, compared with a normal urban environment. Roads in Falls Creek zig-zag to climb up the mountain, which means that often you have to go east, to reach a destination west of you. This threw out people’s reliance on their cognitive mapping ability, and showed that the system even needed to direct to well known destinations.

Recommendations

The results of the strategy development were presented to and accepted by the FCRM board. The most important recommendations were:

• Build two ’short-cut’ walk ways, to make pedestrian journeys shorter
• Changes to the winter parking and carpark-to-accommodation transport system
• Clearer identification of shuttle stops
• Better visibility of signage during winter
• Create information hub for summer visitors
• Changes to main entry road to slow down traffic
• Create connection with activities that start in, but leave the village (e.g. walking and x-country ski trails)
• Create consistency in resort branding expressions
• Promote the use of one, specially designed, map
• Develop a signage hardware system that can be maintained by resort staff

A number of the recommendations were added to the resort’s masterplan, and others were further developed by us.

Implementation

After developing the strategy, ID/Lab created a wayfinding toolkit. This toolkit set out what information needed to be displayed where, and how this information could best be displayed. It included gateway, building, trail-head, statutory, traffic, directional, interpretive, promotional, retail and advertising signage.

An industrial designer was engaged to design the signage hardware, based on our performance specification that described materials, longevity, visibility, legibility and usability requirements.

Because of budget restraints and seasonal demands, the actual implementation of the signage hardware only began after the 2009 ski season. We are looking forward to seeing all the recommendations being implemented, over the next couple of years, as part of the continuing work on creating a world class –and legible– four season resort.