10 Questions You Should to Know about Wayfinding System Design

Whether you are considering a new sign for your business or needing to update existing signage, it's important to ask the right questions. The answers to these questions will help you determine the best materials, design, and messaging for your sign so you can create a sign that meets your desired goal.

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1. What is the purpose of the sign? 

It's important to have a clear purpose for the sign before you start planning it. Is it meant to be an attention-grabber, a brand identifier, or just simply informative? Knowing what your goals are for the sign will help you develop the design and placements best suited to achieve those goals.

2. Who is the intended audience?

Identifying who your sign should target is key ' if you don't get the right message in front of the right people, your sign won't be as effective. Who are the people that need to see the sign? Are you targeting people in the local area, potential new customers, or current customers? 

3. What is the desired outcome? 

Once you've identified your audience, it's time to figure out what you want them to do when they look at the sign. Do you want them to call you, visit your website, visit your store, etc? Knowing this will help you create the right message for your sign.

4. What should the size be?

The size of your sign should be appropriate for the area in which it will be displayed. Consider the location and the distance from which it will be viewed. Smaller sizes for up-close areas and larger sizes for further out locations.

5. What materials should be used?

Choosing the materials for your sign is essential ' you want something that can handle the environment it will be placed in ' something that looks good and is maintainable.

6. What type of font should be used?

Fonts help to transform a sign into something that makes a statement and captures your audience's attention. Make sure to choose a font that is legible and easy to read, as well as one that accurately conveys the tone of the message you are trying to communicate. It also needs to be on brand.

7. What should the colours be?

The colour of your sign is arguably just as important as the materials used and the font chosen. You should choose colours that grab the attention of your intended audience and provide enough contrast to ensure the words on the sign can be read easily.

8. Do you need any special lighting?

Lighting can be a great way to draw more attention to your signage. Are there any places you can put the sign where certain types of lights like LED or fluorescent can be used to make it more visible? 

9. Will the sign require any additional components?

Depending on the sign you are creating, you may need to incorporate additional components such as braille, symbols, and arrows to further emphasize the message. If so, be sure to accurately represent those components with the right materials and proportions.

10. How long should the signage last?

You should think about how long you want the sign to last before you decide on the materials and components used. If you are looking for something that will last for years, it is important to choose materials and components that can withstand the elements and any potential wear and tear. 

Asking these questions can help you narrow down your choices and create the perfect signage, whether it's completely new or an upgraded version of what you already have. Understanding the purpose of the sign, who it should target, what the desired outcome is, and the right materials and components to use are essential for creating high-quality, lasting signage.

Talk to Reade Signs to take these basic questions to the next level, and really ensure you're getting signage solutions that exceed your expectations.

There are a number of common signage design mistakes that are made when designing spaces, signage and the system for navigation and wayfinding and in this post I look at some of these mistakes and the solutions!

1. Signs Places after Decisions Points

Decision points are very important and as you can see from this diagram (above), the signage is out of the line of sight, for the person walking and this is really no good.

The signage needs to be in the correct position and in the diagram below, you can see that as they're walking toward the sign, they have time to make the correct decision.

And this is really the way signage needs to be. You need to have the signage at the right decision points.

2. Not Making Use of Space in Wayfinding Design

The use of space is very important as well in wayfinding. Sometimes you just do not need to use signage.

Sometimes you do BUT the use of space is very, very important and sometimes the main walkways and the main directions can be naturally obvious, from the use of space.

This is a great picture (above) because you can see from the aerial view, how they've used space to guide people and how the paths naturally guide people.

3. Clutter, clustering, and Signage

So when we talk about clustering, this (below) is a great example from a bus coach station in Plymouth, England. You can see that there are so many different types of signage.

The welcome signage, the parking signage, it's just cluttered and there just shouldn't be that much information in one area.

4. Making Basic Signage Design Mistakes

And in the picture above, this is a typical piece of signage that you might see in any airport in the world.

And I don't know if you can see the mistakes but ' there are two mistakes that I'm going to point out right now!

One of them is arrows pointing INTO the text!

This is not a good idea because it makes it harder for people to digest the information subconsciously.

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The arrows should always be pointing away from the text. So if you look at the 'Departures' or the 'Information point' text above, the arrow should be on the right side of those two terms.

Another problem here is that the terms on the sign are wrongly grouped together.

'Toilets' and 'Baby Changing' for example, refer to the same type of facility, so they should be consecutively listed. So even with this kind of signage, there's an easy chance that you can make a mistake.

So care should really be made to this type of signage.

5. Not Maintaining the Signage

Another classic problem and cause of signage design mistakes that I'm going to show you now (see below) are badly maintained signs.

I think from the pictures you can see above, it's quite obvious that with a little care and a little attention, the wayfinding system could be a huge amount clearer, and with proportionately little effort and cost.

These three signs are quite amusing in a way, but they need to be maintained!

6. Not Making Use of Human Resources

One of the most valuable resources when you're planning a wayfinding system, is the staff and the people who work in the location, that you are designing for.

If you talk to staff they will very often get asked the same questions day in, day out, about 'where can I find this', 'where can I find that'.

And so by asking your staff you can really, really zone in on the problems of the system and very often people forget to do this.

So make use of the human resources. Make use of your staff and make sure you evaluate the problems that already exist in the system.

7. Not Having a Planned System Hierarchy

Another common problem is not having a system hierarchy planned and in existence.

So if you can plan what are the most important signs, signs of intermediate importance, and lower importance, then you can begin to really understand how to sign an environment such as an airport.

So you do not need to, for example, promote where the shops and restaurants are at every point in the airport.

You can wait until they're through security and you may not even need to sign the shops and restaurants because they will automatically visually see those things.

So for departure gates or for security, they would have higher importance, so you need to be able to guide people through those key areas.

So you really need to start planning, what are the most important, the intermediate, and the lower importance signage items.

8. Not Considering All User Types

When it comes to thinking about all user types, then we need to think about disabled people, people traveling with children, the elderly.

There are so many different user types that we need to consider and the idea of special assistance ' it can cater to a really wide variety of user types ' and we need to realize, for example, that somebody in a wheelchair ' may enter the main terminal and they may not be looking to check-in first of all.

What they may be looking for first is the special assistance desk. So even when you're signing the main terminal, you need the special assistance to be visible or at least easy to find. NOT everyone will be going and taking the same routes.

So we need to think very carefully about all these different user types.

You should actually have a checklist for disabled travelers, for people traveling with children ' have different checklists so that when you audit the airport or whatever type of travel space you are dealing with, you actually do an audit for every different one of these user types so that you can make sure you have a really efficient system in place.

9. Mixing Different Signage Types

Another problem that people can make is mixing different types of signage.

It's very common in Italy where you often see road signage (for giving directions), that is mixed up with restaurant information and hotel information.

So it can be really confusing when you've got ten or twenty pieces of signage all plastered together and it's thus almost impossible to read as you're driving by.

This isn't such a problem in airports and in other locations, but just watch out for mixing different types of signage because it is best avoided.

10. Using the Wrong Solutions

And finally, the 10th issue that I am going to raise today is using the wrong solutions at the wrong time, in wayfinding.

In this example above, using lighting can be a really great idea but at the times it is mostly going to be busy, in this theatre example on the steps, it's going to be full of people.

So the likelihood that people will be able to read this text is quite low, thus this is maybe not the right solution.

Perhaps it does help some people, but the most important thing is to just consider the different options and different tools that you can use for wayfinding.

In this final example above, it's going to be difficult to read the signage if someone is sitting on that far-right seat.

So something needs to be done, whether it's the position of the sign that needs to be changed or whether another solution is actually needed. Just make sure to pay attention to these things.

Do think carefully if you need electronic signage for example. Sometimes you don't because a simple piece of signage can be more than suitable. So just think about the different solutions.

Video Dialogue: Hello ' I'm Paul from Travelwayfinding.com and I'm going to talk about ten of the most common mistakes that people make when designing a wayfinding system. So let's get into it:

Thank you for reading the post above. I hope that some of the tips were useful. I know they're quite basic but in future posts and videos, I'm going to go into more detail and more technical ideas and points.

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