We are looking for a mid-weight Environmental Graphics / Wayfinding Designer (industrial, graphic, architectural background) who is ready to step up.

The role requires a confident, experienced designer, who has strong conceptual skills (both in 3D and graphic design) and can think and work in 3D.  You need to be able to read architectural plans, work within parameters set by the client and the project, and communicate to the client and the wayfinding strategists your design solution rationale.

Most of our projects are in the built environment; hospitals, offices, transport hubs and urban settings. Most of our output are environmental graphics and signage.

Experience with 3D modeling is an advantage, as is knowledge of a package like ArchiCad. Good communications skills are essential.

Our team is small and we are based in Docklands. The designer has the opportunity to build a great design department within our company.

Please email us a CV and portfolio at info@idlab.com.au, and describe what you are able to contribute to our company.

Christoph Niemann has developed a series of abstract illustrations called My Way, based on the principle of Google maps, showing the most accurate routes for all occasions. Ranging from Main street to Wall street, My way or the highway and from Monday to Sunday. Clever wayfinding mixed with a sense of humor!

(C) Christoph Niemann: Ping-Pong

Source: www.opentype.info/blog

We found this really interesting article on the shapes and layouts of road signs on Ralf Hermanns’ OpenType info blog.

Dr. Raoul Bell conducted a study in which he found that the type of sign significantly influences the time we need to find the target. When all information was presented on one sign and without any separation, the targets could be found much faster. Bell argues that we perceive these objects as groups and only one group can have our attention at a time.

When the information is split into several groups we need to shift our attention from one group to the next, and therefore need more time to perform this task.

It is interesting to see how Australian road signage complies with this paradigm:

ID/Lab mostly applies the following principles to directional signage, which is based on direction & grouping:

The layout and order in which the information on a sign is listed has a significant effect on how quickly people can find the information they need.
People like to be able to read signs quickly, and most people will only give a couple of seconds to find the information. As a result, most directional signs should have limited information.

On larger directional signs, lines sharing a common direction should be grouped together. They become easier to scan and reduce the number of arrows required, enhancing clarity. Signs like directories should be arranged in alphabetical order, to avoid visitors having to read every line to find their department.

Grouping Messages Vertically:
Arrows are linked to the first line of message groupings which are then ranged left or right according to the direction indicated by the arrow.
Arrows to direct straight ahead normally appear on the left except when indicating a route with a bias to the right.

Messages ranged left are grouped above messages ranged right in the order shown below. Where space is restricted, a panel with all ranged left messages can be placed alongside a panel of all ranged right messages.

Source: www.psfk.com

Yes, You read that correctly: Airplane wayfinding:

South Africa’s creative team for Kulula Airlines recently applied wayfinding to the various parts of the aircraft. Now every traveller can learn where the black box is!

Maps by AIG London for Legible Bristol

By Michel Verheem

According to urban management expert Professor Nicolas Low, Melbourne could turn into a transport chaos by 2030 if the government doesn’t change its planning tactics. Just building more motorways is not the answer.

“Melbourne needs an integrated transport plan, with rapid trams to shopping centres, pedestrian shopping streets, buses timed to meet trains, frequent and reliable modern trains with simple timetables, a network of quality bike paths connecting with rail stations. That’s the future the government wants and the public wants”.

At ID/Lab we strongly believe in sustainable transport. None of the staff here drives to work; we either cycle, train or tram.  One of the keys to better sustainable transport is providing people with better, and more local information. How can we get people to understand that they can easily walk to the shops, or that there is a nice park with BBQ facilities just a few streets down.

In the UK, the Legible City concept is very popular: Legible Cities is about improving and integrating the user interface between a city’s urban structure (its composing elements – land use, urban fabric, movement systems, streets and spaces) and its overlaying marketing, wayfinding and information systems. A key lesson from the places where the concept has been implemented is that cities will be more competitive and successful if the overlaying systems represent or mirror an accurate image and ‘mental map’ of the city, and if the information products and services are designed to reinforce the identity of the city itself.

The common thread to each of the projects is that they are ‘people’ and ‘place’ centred, considering the totality of the user experience at the outset, enabling the development of locally relevant and distinctive projects, and providing information about one’s local and adjoining communities in such a way that people understand that walking, cycling or public transport use is possible and rewarding. Possible outcomes are wayfinding signage, websites, printed information, hand-held applications, etcetera.

It seems to us that in (greater) Melbourne –as in all of the larger metropolitan centres– all of this is approached in a rather ‘ad-hoc’ manner, with individual councils developing systems ‘in splendid isolation’. A point in case is the discrepancy between the information (signage) that is being used in the Melbourne CBD and in the Docklands – there is no connection between the two (in fact, there seems to be little connection between the City and the Docklands overall……).

We are working with a number of organisations to look at the opportunity to develop similar paradigms here in Australia – and we can’t wait to implement them!

By Michel Verheem

We have just completed a survey for one of the Melbourne councils; they had some urban wayfinding signage installed and wanted to know what people though about it.

The signage was meant to make the locals understand their own neighbourhood better and to encourage them to walk more.

We interviewed 177 people in a shopping street – standing only 4-5 meters away from one of the signs, but only 18% of the respondents mentioned the signage when asked what changes to that area they had noticed.

Even more interesting is that only 20% of the people that had noticed the sign(s) had actually given it a closer look. The most heard comment was along the lines of ‘Why would I, I am from this area’ or ‘I come here all the time’.

There seemed to be little incentive for ‘locals’ to even just check out what is on the signs. We believe that this could be because the design of the signs does not show ‘We may display something that you don’t know you don’t know’.

We think that small design changes could make a difference in how people see the sign, and with that, how they will react. An example of such a possible change would be the addition of the text ‘Did you know that……”.

Now this council is reaching less than 4% of the overall audience – something that could have been avoided by having the design outcomes tested BEFORE implementation. Hooray for evidence based design!

Source: Guys and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust

ID/Lab’s research for the Auburn Hospital in 2008 showed the confusion that can occur when using ‘medical or process jargon’ on signage. At first glance the results of the terminology testing provide few surprises:

Terms such as Podiatry (10%) were not understood nearly as well as Foot Clinic (42%). The lowest scores given for Allied Health (0%) and Ambulatory (0%). Both these terms are meaningless to patients and visitors, regardless of their proficiency in the English language.

The study involved users from the top five most common languages spoken by the hospitals users, representing 75% of the hospitals CALD (Cultural and Linguistic Diversity) users.

As Rob Waller on his Simpleton blog points out: Wayfinding projects are not just about showing people the way – they are often about making the way easier to show. Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital last year renamed many of their buildings to provide a set of names that makes more sense for patients. For example, people used to have trouble finding New Guy’s House, because it was not particularly new. This means that they’ve had to change not only signs and maps, but appointment letters too.

Department names are also changing:

• ‘Paediatrics’ = ‘Children’s services’
• ‘Ophthalmology’ = ‘Eye department’.
• ‘Renal unit’ = ‘Kidney unit’
• ‘Surgical appliances’ = ‘Patient appliances’.

Hurray for simplification!

Source: Jonny Holland Magazine

Most of us have probably at some stage been to a new city, gotten lost, but coincidentally stumbled across something beautiful because of it.

With the help of technology this might become something of the past. More and more people prefer ‘Knowing’ versus ‘Discovering’.

For us the question is how we can provide an environment and wayshowing information that allows some getting lost and some to know it all. And what do you do when technology fails, eg runs out of batteries?

Read More

Source: Health Facilities Management, photos by A Denmarsh

As we have found when developing the wayfinding strategy for Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital, kids require a very different environment from adults – especially when it comes to navigation. Children’s cognitive mapping capabilities are not yet developed and they see and remember the environment quite different. As an example, where adults can use their cognitive map to picture the route in their head, and ‘cut corners’ on the way back, children need to return using the exact same route they have used before. Landmarks are therefore even more important for projects where children are navigating.

These images from the Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, USA show how to create an environment that is memorable to kids and at the same time make them feel more comfortable in a hospital environment.

Clearly marked help areas, like this reception/greeter desk, were designed to ensure hospital staff are clearly visible to visitors.

Graphics like this butterfly motif in the outpatient lobby appear throughout the hospital to help the transition from an unbalanced state to a balanced one.

The hospital’s four-story atrium provides a gathering place for families and patients. It features a two-story projection screen and access to a rooftop garden.

Read More

We came across this article in Health Facilities Digital Management Magazine which is quite interesting as it is what we do in ID/Lab. Looking at possible patient flows, before a building like a hospital is being build.

By observing how a patient flows through a hospital, architects can design a modern health care environment that eliminates wasted time, reduces operational costs and ultimately leads to less mistakes, back-flows and waiting. The key is to understand the current process flows prior to design, analyze these flows and create the ideal future state flows, adjacencies and spaces that provide the best functionality for each process, department or organization.

Read More

This placemaking article is about Harvard Uni in the US. Harvard Uni have engaged PPS to achieve a place of sense that’s both attractive  and active for students and other stakeholders.

Last year ID/Lab developed a user experience audit for Waurn Ponds Deakin Uni in Geelong, Vic, while we also interviewed stakeholders.

Staff felt that more could be done to minimise the amount of direction giving around campus. A practical approach was needed:

Signage needed to be revamped, including the campus map and certain pathways needed to be more dominant. The carpark addressing system had to be simplified, including improving the pre-visit info and message hierarchy.

Such changes all add to achieving a place of sense and attraction, especially for new students, as nothing is so frustrating as feeling lost.

Wayfinding part 1

wayfinding part 2

wayfinding part 3

wayfinding part 4

By Yvonne Verheem

Healthcare Design Magazine in the USA quoted some of the work ID/Lab performed for the “Specialist Clinics Wayfinding Guidelines, The Outpatient Journey”, for the Department of Human Services Victoria. It was a joint project with Growth Solutions in Melbourne.

The article on the web/blog talks about wayfinding in healthcare facilities.

www.healthcaredesignmagazine.com

The following contribution is from Jonathan Rez. He is a Senior Wayfinding Strategist at FW Design in London. With cross-disciplinary design background, he has been working across physical and online environments. He is also a casual lecturer at the University of New South Wales in Australia where he wrote the course Visual Identity in the Built Environment.

Thingfinding is a new way to think about how we navigate and experience contemporary urban life.

Traditional physical information systems in the built environment provide an effective way to wayfinding, however in their current format, they do not satisfy our need to find something specific that exists within a place.

Typically, people are not looking for a destination solely for the purpose of arriving there. In most occasions, we are interested in something that exists in that destination, be it a product, a service, an experience, a person or a particular state of mind. Unfortunately, traditional wayshowing systems are not able to provide us with that level of personalised information and we have to rely on a two stage process of thingfinding. That is, first, identify where the thing can be found, and then find the way to it. Up until recently, this would most likely have occurred using the Yellow Pages or a search engine, followed by a physical on-street wayshowing system. More recently, newly available technology is providing a streamlined thingfinding process via location aware smart phones.

At the most basic level, I can use my smart phone for wayfinding, with the help of the in-built GPS and Map application. The phone locates where I am and charts a path to my desired destination, indicating to me where I am up to along my journey to assist in orientation and navigation.
At a more advanced level, I can use my smart phone for thingfinding. For example if I’m feeling like Sushi for lunch, I can search for it using the map application which shows me where I might find Sushi nearby, and subsequently show me the way there.

The rate at which new thingfinding technologies are advancing is swift and consequently 2009 marks a dramatic shift in the way many of us experience and interact with the world around us. The proliferation of location aware smart phones with uninterrupted mobile web connection and more affordable data plans has created a fertile ground for the growth in location based services, particularly location based social networking platforms. Together these enable us to consume and create rich locative media; information, images and other location specific content as well as new social forms of interaction, essentially ascribing new meaning to a place.

More interesting interactions begin to occur using location based social networks, such as Dopplr, Plazes and Brightkite to name just a few. For example, as a tourist or traveller arriving at a new place, I no longer have to look for a tourist information centre to find out what interesting sites, amenities and other things exist around me, as long as I have a Dopplr account. Recently redefining itself as ‘The Social Atlas’ Dopplr lets me map my own journeys and add geo-tagged information about my experiences along the way. I am also able to access information about other people’s experiences, both strangers and friends. By scheduling a trip to Greenwich, I am automatically presented with local information contributed by other travellers, about their experiences of the place. I can read what other people think about a set of questions presented by Dopplr:
Where’s good to eat in Greenwich
Where can I get free internet connection
What’s good to explore in Greenwich
What’s the best local market or shopping
What’s nearby that’s worth a visit
Where’s a good place to stay
Tell us something good about London.

Plazes, which was established in 2004 and was last year purchased by Nokia, offers a number of different ways to find information about places. The ‘Radar’ lets me drag a pin and place it in a desired location on a map to explore people and ‘plazes’ in the area.

Alternatively, I can filter the type of information in which I am interested using a category drop-down menu.

In the list of destinations presented to me I recognise the café I visited yesterday. I enjoyed my experience there, and since my experience of Cafés in London is generally poor, I made sure to ‘plaze’ myself at the place and share it with my contacts. The café was ‘plazed’ by another person and since it is quite a quirky café, perhaps this person and me share a common taste. I click their profile to see what other ‘plazes’ they visited, hoping to find insights about other local places.
New connections are created within location based social networks when strangers share similar interests as well as when they share an interest in similar places.

Tens of location based applications or contextual location services that collect human contributed information about things in places contribute towards a huge repository of location specific information. Even older more established online services now incorporate location-based information. Flickr, for example, now enables users to geotag photos.

Having at our fingertips locative media in the form of text, images, and in the near future moving image and sonic segments that convey people’s in-place experiences helps us better understand places. At the same time, the way we experience places is being redefined. More than ever before we can experience places without physically being in them. Furthermore, having the ability to share our in-place experiences means that as individuals we play an active role in shaping the way others experience places.

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By Yvonne Verheem

Most designers and architects believe wayfinding is not a high priority issue, or view it as a problem that will interfere with good design. And too often it is considered simply a signage issue….

According to Professor Per Mollerup, “Wayfinding should be part of the logistics and general site planning, especially for complex sites like hospitals, otherwise, wayfinding could become so-called repair design for architectural neglect”.

ID/Lab’s research project for the Austin/Mercy Hospital in Melbourne revealed that the hospital was spending over $2.2 million annually in staff time giving directions. This does not yet address the cost for missed appointments!

After implementing just the most urgent of ID/Lab’s recommendations,  70% less wayfinding complaints were received and the hospital saved over $650,000.00 annually in staff time. All the recommended changes could have been picked up in the architectural design stages, and be implemented as part of the building work for minimum cost.

Wayfinding is more then just a navigational aid. Rather it is a way to market an area’s resources (eg retail, tourist attractions), alter negative perceptions, evoke a sense of character and improve accessibility and public safety.

ID/Lab is Australia’s only specialised wayshowing consultancy. We have developed a unique approach to delivering wayshowing/wayfinding solutions, based on many years of experience researching, developing, designing, testing and implementing wayshowing strategies in Australia and Europe.