Images courtesy GNU Group
By Philip Murphy
Health-care facilities are among the most complex environments accessed by the public. As hospitals and medical centres strive to improve efficiency and the user experience, one of the key considerations is how to successfully guide people to their destinations.
A prodigious amount of research has been conducted as to how people navigate health-care environments, including studies of the effects of user disorientation. These studies have confirmed wayfinding contributes significantly to users’ satisfaction.
Complex environments
Many factors contribute to wayfinding challenges in health-care environments. For one thing, these types of facilities are too often characterized by labyrinths of monochromatic halls and walls, with few cues—other than signs—to distinguish different uses of the space or people’s destinations. As such, the environments facing most visitors are confusing.
The concept of ‘progressive disclosure’ has been used very effectively in airports, where visitors are guided incrementally to their destinations.
While contemporary design is making great strides in changing these conditions, many health-care facilities today are still a perfect setting for getting lost. Indeed, one of the top causes of patient dissatisfaction is the ease of becoming lost while navigating virtually indistinguishable corridors.
Another problem is continual change, as health-care facilities rarely remain static. Inevitable changes include the relocation of departments and architectural updates through renovations, additions or new construction. So, the environment patients encountered during their last visit may be entirely different the next time.
Further, many hospitals and clinics deliver care in a decentralized fashion. Patients often find themselves navigating multiple buildings and needing to visit numerous different offices during a single health-care campus visit. While wayfinding should logically involve linear paths, this is rarely the case.
Traditionally, the task of guiding patients, visitors and other facility users has fallen onto signs alone. While signage certainly remains a significant component of any wayfinding approach, however, a broader spectrum of tools is needed. Indeed, the entire professional discipline of environmental graphic design (EGD) has evolved to provide more effective solutions to the aforementioned problems. One such solution is integrated wayfinding.
Integrated wayfinding
Through EGD, multiple forms of communication are layered within a facility to ensure users have all of the information they need to get to their destinations easily and on time. The concept of integrated wayfinding is to consider the many ways users can receive such information, including but not limited to signs, and then to respond by distributing the information when and where it is needed.
Some hospitals attempt to provide an ideal patient experience from the beginning with an appointment reminder card that includes some of the same information found on signs, such as simple maps, parking instructions, entry points and departmental icons. Their websites often provide the same orientation details, while smart phone and tablet computer applications are also entering the mix of wayfinding tools.
Some hospitals integrate wayfinding sign information into their appointment reminder cards and websites. Smart phone and tablet computer applications are now also entering the mix.
Hospital employees commit inordinate time to helping people find their way. While this is one of the problems that integrated wayfinding should solve, there will always be some need for interpersonal communications in the mix, whether formally structured—as through phone outreach and information desks—or through direct encounters whenever visitors seek guidance.
In line with EGD, architecture and interior design can provide powerful orientation cues. In new facilities, there is an enormous opportunity for floor plans and the relationship between various rooms and departments to support wayfinding. The colours, materials, graphics and other visual cues implemented through interior design or renovations can help clearly designate different floors, zones and departments.
