Wayfinding and placemaking

When we think of a place as being welcoming and easy to connect with it’s unlikely we are thinking of the signage. Intuitive and natural visitor flows are the result of good spatial design. In this context wayfinding signage is simply a means of reassuring and confirming user expectations as people engage with a precinct. This unified approach is embedded in modern architectural and landscape design workflows such as that embodied in the Chelsea Australian Garden at Olinda – a project for which we did the signage in 2023.

Such landscape integration is however commonly ignored when isolated projects are undertaken to upgrade / renew wayfinding for established community precincts.

Sometimes effective signs can be installed without considering placemaking and the context within which the user encounters the signage media. This hit or miss approach however is a poor basis upon which to build a coherent wayfinding response.

UX wayfinding design

As the entry signage installation we designed for Watchbed Creek on the Bogong High Plains in 2010 illustrates, we need to approach wayfinding for natural and cultural heritage places in the same way an architect or landscape designer would - from the perspective of the user experience.

Typically wayfinding is guided by an existing set of corporate design standards for signage embracing both sign utility and also brand delivery. If these don’t already exist, then the first step of a project may well be to create these. We undertook just such a process for the ACT Parks and Conservation Service when completing a major makeover of their visitor wayfinding signage in 2017/18.

Working within an agency endorsed, overarching design framework is an essential part of any wayfinding project response. It is not however an invitation to disengage from developing considered and sometimes bespoke responses to a specific precinct’s needs. Sometimes considered innovation is required, othertimes a cookie cutter approach is appropriate.

The best signage program guidelines understand this. They recognise that excessive codification and control of the signage branding roll out effectively builds in a planned obsolescence to the signage. Devoid of any chance to adapt and respond to changing user experience needs and expectations, it delivers increasingly dated solutions up until the point where a complete rebranding exercise is undertaken and the whole cycle begins again.

What is needed is balance - a creative tension between the needs and utility of wayfinding consistency while balancing the overall context of how this contributes to the user experience and the ongoing role of placemaking for a precinct.

The Parramatta City example

An example of how a tightly branded and fully conceived wayfinding signage suite can still be adaptable and responsive to the specific needs of different settings comes from Parramatta City Council.

We undertook the first of several wayfinding programs for their bushland reserves in 2020 just after their new wayfinding signage system was launched following an extensive program of research and development.

While much of the system worked well for the urban / bush interface we were working with, it did not sit neatly alongside the trail in bushland areas. Their system was adaptable enough to allow for us to assist Council bushland managers to create an additional corten bushland signage unit for inclusion into the sign suite following careful in house review.

It also allowed us flexibility to develop a mapping style better suited to the specific needs of bushland areas than that adopted for urban settings. Additionally it embraced the option of including the then very newly recognised use of the ///what3words placenames to easily pinpoint a user's location to within 3 sq/m.

This came almost immediately after the new location marking system was adopted for use in Australian national emergency service platforms.

Its inclusion in the signage suite helps serve as an example of how delivering corporate brand consistency can still allow for flexibility and innovation in terms of keeping up with new technological developments.

A UX first wayfinding design approach

The value of setting a UX design response as the foundation of any wayfinding program is that it invites us to initially put aside corporate priorities in relation to branding and user regulations. Instead we can come at things purely from the context within which the user engages with a place. What are people doing when they encounter the wayfinding media?

Are they in a vehicle, on a bike or on foot for example? If in a vehicle should we even attempt to communicate with them via the corporate branded signage suite or rather conform with standard road signage protocols? If on a shared use path should we ensure a safe node is created where users can step aside from the flow of passing traffic and take in the content in a manner that ensures both their convenience and the safety of other path users?

What is the overall context for the wayfinding? Is there internet coverage and are people already engaged with their own Google or Apple maps app providing them with step by step directions to their intended destination?

Are the users about to leave an area with internet coverage to enter bushland with no reception? Should they be offered the chance to download a smartphone PDF guide to a preinstalled PDF reader app (eg iBooks) on their mobile device to provide them with a portable wayfinding reference to take with them? Is this PDF guide small enough to quickly and easily download at remote trailhead areas with typically poor mobile coverage?

And where are they? One of the fundamental obligations for any successful wayfinding engagement is to know exactly where you are at a given moment. From here you can then make decisions about where you want to go and how you can get there. This location specific detail is relevant to all users. Making predictions about where they may want to go in the future might not be.

A UX first approach dictates that this essential location marking is present in all wayfinding. This highlights the need for clear mapping content showing the user's location supported by a ///what3words pinpoint identifier to always be included on wayfinding content.

An additional benefit of using a UX focus for wayfinding is that it reminds us to be mindful of peak visitor usage patterns in our planning. One of the problems of both planning, installation and thereafter promotional photography of wayfinding projects, is that they are typically done during quiet periods with favourable weather.

Here low-lying signage may work well during times when lines of sight may be open and unobstructed by parked vehicles or crowded precincts. During peak loads however such signage may be effectively obscured and lose all functional relevance.

This is especially a problem around visitor focal points such as the edges of lookout platforms. One option to avoid this is to strategically locate signage away from areas subject to crowding and to position this in more central locations back from the lookout edges such as that shown below for the Walls Lookout at Mt Canobolas SCA.

Wayfinding contributing to placemaking

A key opportunity to consider with any wayfinding program is the chance it brings to either initiate or enhance the placemaking processes underway for a precinct. Most visitors will need to orientate themselves upon arrival in a new setting. Responding to this need in a clear and easily accessed manner creates opportunities to not just convey information, but also to build a sense of community.

Trailhead settings for example can do much more than just deliver orientation information. Including seating here invites groups to form up and recalibrate as they exit from their respective vehicles and set off along the track. Creating a communal gathering space through simple infrastructure can also assist dialogue and engagement between parties.

It can also be of major assistance to the providers of support services like guided tours as these nodes create natural meeting places where information can be both conveyed and shared.

Thereafter such nodes can valuably also be included at key junctions along the trail network. One of the key benefits of adopting a UX approach to wayfinding is that it reminds us how this is typically a user's first point of engagement with a precinct. People are responding emotionally and intuitively to a place long before they ever come into contact with the detail of an actual sign. This requires wayfinding to reach out and engage with components of the user experience it typically has stepped around.

Traditionally wayfinding was something managers have done to address their own needs and problems. The old notion that every management problem needed a new sign to fix it is behind us. Today contributing to signage clutter is rightly seen as both a very expensive and ineffective way to address any issue.

Adopting a UX design ethic invites us to reimagine the invisible contract between the user and the manager. The manager is no longer the sole provider of information relating to the user experiences in places of natural and cultural heritage significance. Users now have many sources of information to choose from - especially so in places with internet coverage.

This is a direct challenge for managers as they have traditionally used their role as gatekeepers of a user's “need to know” content to also deliver messages about things they “want them to know”. Responding to this requires not so much as an answer, as it does of an acknowledgement that the issue exists. An innovative approach that works in with today’s technologies may lose relevance in the future quicker than we may care to imagine.

What we can do off lasting consequence is to recognise that the conceptual foundations that underpinned a lot of wayfinding signage programs across the late 1900s and early 2000s need to be questioned and evaluated as to their relevance in a mobile optimised age.