When it comes to wayfinding, it’s important to use digital to give live information. As consumers, we tend to only pay attention to information that affects or helps us personally. So when designing or implementing a wayfinding system, it’s a great idea to incorporate information relative to the viewer.
Consumers are bombarded daily with a constant influx of information coming from all directions. Our minds will naturally filter out irrelevant information. It’s important that your wayfinding system is not part of that group.
One of the main issues designers have is making the consumer trust their information. People will often trust the information they’re provided initially, which means they’ll continually take notice. However, their trust quickly fades if that information is old, inaccurate or misleading. Unfortunately, this means that they’ll most likely lose trust in the entire system. Resulting in ‘clutter’ that their mind filters out. This is why it’s crucial that you use digital platforms to provide live information.
Live information can be considered anything from continuously updating train times and schedules to the number of parking spaces available through a parking app. This information is crucial to the customer journey because it allows for adaptation to help the user get to their destination. Here’s an example. Say you’ve got a reservation at your favourite restaurant and you’re driving over and suddenly your navigation tells you to go a different way than usual due to heavy traffic. This feed of live information has allowed you to adapt your route given the circumstances and still get to your reservation on time.
The best way to figure out how to implement live information in your area is to put yourself in the mind of the consumer and think about how your journey could be made more efficient. For example, you may consider developing an app that can feed your area users cool information about their journey. In-app experiences can tie in with street signage and help bring their journey to life. These integrations could include historical background, weather, events and special promotions as well as more normal information like travel times, traffic information and schedules.
Overall, the more live information you can give your area users, the better experience and journey they will have. If you need help implementing digital and live information into your wayfinding system, why not give us a call?