Let’s talk about the 5 Principles of Wayfinding and why each aspect is instrumental to a comprehensive navigation system. When it comes to wayfinding, it’s important that the user doesn’t have to overthink. Instead, you should create a visual communication system that is clear and consistent with concise messaging. It’s also important that you only show what is needed. Any excess information will quickly become background noise and clutter in the users’ mind, ultimately confusing their journey. Therefore, we advise you only show what is relevant to space, location and journey.
Additionally, just as you are adding information to the user journey, it’s also essential to remove excessive information. Keeping all of this in mind, these are the 5 Principles of Wayfinding that should be emphasized within a navigation system: Journey, Legibility, Accessibility, Design and Consistency.
Before we can begin to look at signage, understanding the journey is key. It’s important to consider the different paths, desire lines and natural routes through and around the area. In wayfinding, desire lines are unplanned pathways that users will take when going through space. These are often seen as shortcuts and a more natural route to a chosen destination. In some circumstances, designers will leave parks without planned paths to see which routes park-goers will naturally gravitate to. With this information, they will then put in paths accordingly.
When thinking about the user journey it’s also a great idea to think about the different landmarks and public transport considerations within the area. For more information about wayfinding and where the term came from, check out this book.
The next principle of wayfinding is legibility. It is paramount that every wayfinding system is legible and easy to use and understand. Providing users with the right information at the right time will make their journey much easier. For example, have you ever been in a space where you’re overloaded with information and directional signage to the point where they may as well have left it all blank? This is why it’s crucial that you eliminate clutter and use an easily digestible design with language that is simple yet effective. You may also consider making colours, signs and other design techniques unique to each location, that way each place is easily distinguishable.
In the world of wayfinding, legibility and accessibility go hand in hand. When you think of navigation, it can be easy to overlook the needs of those who don’t have the same capabilities as the majority of people moving through space. For example, when developing a wayfinding system, it’s crucial that it is accessible to all including those who have visual and physical impairments as well as those with language barriers. For more information, take a look at our recent article on Accessibility and Legibility in Wayfinding Design.
Accessibility within wayfinding extends to a lot of different types of media. For example, a systems signage needs to have the same accessibility as does it’s apps and technology. Here’s our guest article on Setting the Standards for Signs of Accessibility that goes into detail about making built environments and spaces more accessible.
It’s no surprise that strong, clear design is imperative in wayfinding. Colour, typography and pictograms are all essential elements of signage design. It’s also a great idea to keep in mind branding considerations if they’re relevant to the environment. When designing the maps used in a wayfinding system, they need to be easy to read and adaptable to the different formats they will be found in. For example, a map needs to be consistent across printed and digital signage. More information about the importance of maps in wayfinding can be found here.
The fifth and final principle of wayfinding is consistency. Once you have all of the above set in stone, it’s crucial that you keep it going even after the project has been completed. A great way to ensure consistency is upkept is through Wayfinding Guidelines. Additionally, you should monitor the system, look out for any issues and update any necessary information. Consistency allows for adaptable and therefore more usable navigation.
Overall, wayfinding design is a complex process that has a lot of considerations, mainly involving the 5 key principles we spoke about in this article. To recap, Journey, Legibility, Accessibility, Design and Consistency should be front of mind when developing a navigation system.
If you have any questions about Wayfinding or it’s different applications, please feel free to get in touch. We’d be happy to have a chat.