Jonathan Rez

11 Mar 2011 / Professional practice

In this lecture about wayfinding, Jonathan Rez pointed out the fact that designing wayfinding systems is more about functional solutions and constraints rather than providing experiences to who is using it. He started with some examples of mistaken, funny signs, showing how careful people designers should be, once it really affects people’s life.

In his opinion, the more correct word for describing wayfinding systems should be wayshowing.

In a wayshowing project the first step is to identify destinations and popular routes in order to find decision points where directions are needed. And then which signs are more suitable to each purpose. It’s essential to compile a destination list. This can be provided by the client or by different stakeholders. Otherwise designer can also do it, based on field/primary research.

It’s important to talk with different people in the area, both residents and visitors and ask them where they want to go, why they want to get somewhere. Like this, we can have a bigger picture and create something that is really focused on the users. Of course, not all the desired destinations will be covered. People have often very specific needs.

Following that, Rez argues that it would be actually important in some cases to reframe wayfinding as thingfinding. And that is where service design can make a difference, once it’s a user-centred approach.

Besides designing the signs it’s also important to provide an overall experience in delivering directions/information, considering pre-visit, travel, arrival, on-site, destination and egress. Making sure that the information at these different stages is coherent help to provide a good service and a good experience to the user.