Apr. 2, 2008 at 2:27pm

Effective wayfinding takes fresh perspective

Posted by Kathleen Deakins in Branding, Measurement
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“Thank goodness we got a personal tour. I’m not sure we could have found the hospital room on our own,” one visitor remarked.

This was a comment from a group of health system employees, my travel companions, who took time during a business trip this week to visit a seriously ill colleague hospitalized nearby. I was struck by how our perspectives change when we become the visitors.

Wayfinding is part of the customer experience. The principles of branding and marketing tell us that signage, maps, facility layout and the availability of friendly, personal help make a huge difference to the customer experience and reputation. An anxiety-filled trip to the hospital teaches that lesson effectively.

Compliant may not be effective. On the same trip, we mistakenly drove the wrong way on the circular drive of a major downtown hotel. Ours was not the only car pointed in the wrong direction. Later, we saw that we missed the hotel entrance sign. The hotel apparently posted a sign and thought the job was done. Our familiarity with the serpentine hallways of our own hospital can blind us, too. As a result, we are in danger of focusing too much on compliance with signage standards and too little on effectiveness.

Testing is easy. A fresh perspective is as close by as the newest employee, intern or volunteer. One way to test the effectiveness of your wayfinding system is to ask them to complete a questionnaire after their first week. Another is to send them to specific locations and then report their route and how they found their way. Try having them photograph the signs, directories and maps they followed.

And once you’ve acted on what you’ve learned, be sure to test again. It is that fresh perspective alone that can tell you if you’ve been effective.

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