Wayfinding Systems

Signage and wayfinding for buildings and outdoor environments.

Course topics:

• What is wayfinding and what are wayfinding systems?
• Human factors in wayfinding
• Consequences of bad wayfinding systems
• Multi-level strategies for developing wayfinding
• Readability, legibility and positioning of signs
• Locational, directional and directory signs
• User-centered methods for wayfinding
• Universal design in wayfinding
• Digital and multi-modal wayfinding
• The role of wayfinding systems in strategic design
• Maps for wayfinding

After completing the module, the student shall be able to:

• analyse existing wayfinding and sign systems.
• suggest new wayfinding systems for the users of man-made environments, like for example a university campus, a hospital, a shopping mall or an airport.
• The student shall be qualified to account for psychological, cognitive, typographical, form and material-related issues in the design of wayfinding systems.
• The students shall be trained in the design and presentation of wayfinding systems, and shall be aware of universal design considerations in wayfinding design.
• The student shall be informed about the use of and relation between traditional and new technology in wayfinding.
• The student shall be familiar with the importance of a systematic, holistic analysis in the process of designing wayfinding solutions and shall be trained in the use of user-centred methods like personas and scenarios, prototyping and user testing and involvement in the design process.
• The students shall have developed an increased awareness and competence about how the UN's sustainability goals can be included in the design of signage and wayfinding systems; specifically, how well-designed systems can:
  • reduce inequalities and contribute to the accessibility of man-made environments through principles of universal design (UN Sustainable Development Goal 10: "Reduced inequality")
  • take into account Sustainable Development Goal 12: "Responsible consumption and production" through the choice of materials and assessments of necessary design interventions.

Lectures, exercises, and group project with weekly supervision (formative-iterative evaluation). Sketches, the design process, and the end result must be documented.

This course is offered to exchange students. Language of instruction is English.