by Eric Reiss - 14 January 2001

 

How we move through physical spaces

During a lengthy stopover in Paris recently, it struck me that architects in the physical world and navigation designers in cyberspace face many of the same problems as they attempt to guide visitors through their respective environments. Since architects have been doing this longer than we web-folk, I thought it would be interesting to discover how and where they learn their trade.

As the hours turtled on and my interest in a grounded Air France Concorde faded, I started to wonder if, in fact, there were any basic principles of signage in public areas. After all, public buildings (like websites) are not created equal. Although some airports provide good information (Copenhagen-Kastrup, Amsterdam-Schipol), the worst (such as Paris-deGaulle) require both literacy and ESP if you expect to find what you're looking for.

The research begins - schools of architecture
Back home in Copenhagen, I decided to do a little investigation. I started by calling the Royal Danish Academy of Art and Architecture and after several telephonic dead-ends, found myself talking to Lisbeth Gasparski, an assistant professor in graphic design. "Our architecture students work on projects - learning by doing," explained Ms. Gasparski, "They study existing buildings and develop their own rules-of-thumb. That means there aren't really any classes in signage, as such, nor is there any specific course literature. However, we do spend quite a lot of time teaching them how to design fonts so their signs complement their buildings."

This was surprising news considering that Helvetica is to Danish buildings what Verdana is to websites. Besides, it seems to me people need better signs, not just prettier ones.

Calls to the Royal College of Art in London, as well as the schools of architecture at Princeton, MIT, and Cornell contributed to the rapidly swelling coffers of my phone company, but not much to my knowledge.

A friend of mine, who heads a major architectural firm in Copenhagen, told me, "Of course, we're terribly interested in how people get around - both in cars outside the building, and on foot once they've entered." However, when pressed as to how his people actually accomplished this he admitted, "We usually call in a consultant."

Signage consultants
Two of the leading "consultancies" are the LEGO-owned Modulux in Billund, Denmark, which claims to be the world's largest supplier of sign systems, and their Dallas-based business partner, ASI , which claims to be North America's largest. Alas, no one at either of these companies could tell me much about formalized training - most of their know-how seems to have been gained empirically. However, both of their websites featured a word I hadn't seen before - "wayfinding." A quick search on AltaVista produced thousands of links - to sign companies, architects, and graphic designers.

Paydirt!

The origins of wayfinding
"Wayfinding" was coined by Kevin Lynch in his classic 1960 work, Image of the City . A professor emeritus at MIT until his death in the mid-eighties, the fact that my query at the MIT School of Architecture didn't produce results suggests that wayfinding (like information architecture for the web) probably isn't as widely acknowledged as it should be - at least not enough to warrant specific courses (there are exceptions: San Jose State has classes, for example).

Basically, "wayfinding" deals with the process of using spatial and environmental information to navigate within the "built" world (sound familiar, cybernauts?). One of the best articles I found was written by an architect in Washington state, Kelly Brandon. Here's a link to his various writings.

Since my overseas phone bill was starting to look like the national debt, I figured one more call wouldn't make much difference. I called Kelly Brandon - and discovered a kindred spirit.

The amazing Kelly Brandon
Mr. Brandon had also been struck by the similarities between built and on-line environments. "They're both 3-D and therefore many of the principles of wayfinding can also be applied to websites." He explained that in airport design (Mr. Brandon has worked on wayfinding and signage for San Francisco Airport, which is excellent), one of the keys is to draw on a common, well-established vocabulary for travellers. He explained "If each airport invents its own terms, people get confused. This is becoming increasingly important as inter-modal transportation hubs come into being, combining, for example, rail and air travel." The same problem of vocabulary carries over into websites as people take techniques and terms from one site and attempt to apply these to the next site they visit. Unfortunately, this doesn't always work since few universal conventions yet exist.

Mr. Brandon is a member of the Society for Environmental Graphic Design, which is trying to accomplish many of the same things in the built world that web usability experts are working on in cyberspace (ASI is also a member). I was interested to hear that their website has been designed on the basis of "best-practice" wayfinding - which leads me to a modest conclusion to this article.

Wayfinding and navigation are similar, but?
During the course of my research, I was surprised to find that many of the architectural and wayfinding websites I visited had more usability problems than most. I think I may know why: although wayfinding and web navigation are closely related in theory, in practice, they differ in one significant respect - links in cyberspace have no physical length.

Whereas building architects try to place kitchens and dining rooms in close physical proximity and routinely equip tall buildings with elevators, the web removes these spatial constraints, allowing designers to put as many "rooms" next to each other as they like. One of the key problems with the above-mentioned websites is, that the hierarchies are narrow and deep, which suggests the designers were thinking in physical terms - moving to a new floor. Moreover, the navigation makes frequent use of the browser's back button - another physical holdover in which visitors are expected to go out the same door they came in.

When all is said and done, though, there's no question we web people should explore the existing wayfinding literature and learn more about the principles of environmental graphic design. After all, there's no point in reinventing the wheel - although this is a favorite web pastime.

Comments or questions?

Back to "Articles" page