3 Principles of Intuitive Wayfinding for Inclusive Space
Support for wayfinding depends on more than signage and coloured lines on the floor. An elevated wayfinding program requires an integrated, coordinated system in which three elements — human behaviour, environmental design and organisational policies and practices — work harmoniously to ensure anyone can easily navigate their environment. It's not simply about the signs; it's about understanding how people interact with the space and designing it to facilitate their movement.
When visual and sensory cues lack strategic thought and integration in design, it can lead to disorientation and confusion, resulting in significant financial loss for businesses. A single 1990 study by Craig Zimring, "The Costs of Confusion: Non-monetary and Monetary Costs of the Emory University Hospital Wayfinding System," revealed that confusion in a large regional hospital could exceed $220,000 annually. When adjusted for inflation in modern times, this number is closer to $500,000. This substantial amount, which could be significantly reduced with a well-implemented wayfinding program, underscores the potential financial benefits of such a system, making it a compelling investment for any business.
Three Principles of Intuitive Wayfinding
Together, these principles can lead to a positive outcome for clients and the community.
- Think Beyond Convention
- Embrace Storytelling Through Layers and Connection
- Move Toward Universality
1. Think Beyond Convention
For wayfinding designers, thinking beyond begins with understanding how different individuals — staff and the public — experience a building, from the parking lot to their destination and back again. As designers, we place ourselves virtually and figuratively inside buildings not yet built and imagine what it would be like to experience it for the first time as an intended end-user would. This deep understanding of human behaviour and human factors helps us anticipate the physical and cognitive challenges end users may face as they navigate new environments.
As part of the design for the Moffitt Cancer Center, the client's main goal was to cultivate a patient-centred experience while prioritising the needs of care providers and hospital administration. Involved in the design process early, our wayfinding designers attended an immersive design event with more than 170 stakeholders — physicians, nurses, lab personnel, pharmacy staff, executive leaders, administrators, patients and families — to understand their individual and collective needs.
In addition to gaining consensus on the planning direction and departmental adjacencies, our designers understood that the hospital's wayfinding strategy needed to complement interiors designed to feel like a relaxing, spa-like environment. Utilising Moffitt's established signage standards as a starting point, we developed additional unique sign types and experiential graphics inspired by Florida's rich, dense vegetation to intuitively guide visitors on their hospital journey, whether locating a loved one's patient room, finding a quiet space for reflection or grabbing a bite to eat from the café. To reach the hospital's diverse patient population, retail-inspired signage is used for amenity spaces and pictograms are incorporated wherever possible.
2. Embrace Storytelling Through Layers and Connection
When colours and patterns repeat throughout a building, it creates a sense of familiarity and comfort for people in unfamiliar environments, especially in healthcare settings. The same is true for totems — art, sculptures, installations — that reinforce intuitive direction and add elements of positive distraction to the user experience. We use unique, recognisable and memorable colours, often corresponding with a client's brand colours, to reinforce their brand with wayfinding.
Children's Hospital and Medical Center Omaha wanted the design for their new Hubbard Center for Children, a ten-story building connected to their existing site, to be a celebration of colour and a destination to improve children's lives. The design team developed a cohesive design strategy around colour, shape and print that is childlike, not childish, to relate to patients up to age 18.
Each patient floor is identifiable by a unique colour and shape, with each floor using a monochromatic colour scheme, with colour intentionally placed to highlight architectural forms and serve as wayfinding. Like a musical crescendo, the intensity of shape and colour increases as visitors travel through multiple touch points — elevator entry, waiting area and nurse's station — to patient rooms, where shape and colour subdue with watercolour headwalls featuring shapes that connect with the overarching theme. The design team created opportunities to recognise donors within the building's art, including a series of playful bear structures thoughtfully placed to help users navigate their way through building corridors and public spaces.
3. Move Toward Universality
With more than 400 languages spoken in the United States alone, built environments require more than translations to create an inclusive, equitable experience for all visitors.
Once, when completing a user experience assessment for a hospital in Virginia, our client originally wanted Spanish translations of all signage. In conversation with the gentleman at the front door, the man shared that he often escorted lost people to their destination, implying that translations would only help a portion of visitors due to the varying levels of literacy and diverse languages spoken among the patient population. This realisation inspired us to make a case for using pictograms — universal symbols for words and phrases — to ensure an equitable user experience regardless of linguistic and cognitive ability. Beyond healthcare environments, pictograms are beneficial in various typologies, from affordable housing and libraries to recreation centres and transportation hubs.
In addition to pictograms, colours, shapes and forms provide wayfinding cues that are not reliant on written language and literacy. When our signage incorporates text, we utilise highly legible fonts with sufficient contrast and appropriate sizing for viewing at a distance.
Intuitive wayfinding is more than a design element; it's our commitment to creating spaces that respect diversity, celebrate inclusivity and acknowledge the human experience in every journey. By thinking beyond convention, embracing storytelling, and moving toward universality, we can create spaces that are not only navigable, but also inclusive and intuitive. Our multidisciplinary teams, equipped with a deep understanding of these principles, are dedicated to transforming spaces into comforting narratives. By involving ourselves early in the design process and valuing client input, we create empathetic and effective wayfinding strategies for our clients.
