(Original) Signage & Wayfinding

We used our last summer meeting together (before everyone scatters to different corners of the 24/5 workweek) to take another field trip to campus buildings, walk in the users' shoes, and generate ideas about signage and wayfinding challenges and solutions.

Kerr Administration

(notes in progress)

Visitor Center window decals

Interactive directory

• accessible but low for us
• from the staff list you can get animated directions on the floor map.
• nice "you are here" circle

Restroom signs

• placement
• impromptu arrows obscuring the braille!

"staff entrance" TP sign - maybe a window decal is in order? In fact, we could do one for the Circulation office door.

Memorial Union

(notes in progress)

Static directory

1. Beth reported on meeting with Seunghae Lee about doing wayfinding research in the library. Beth is interested in doing focus groups to gather user input.
2. Beth mentioned service design thinking as a useful framework:
   • see Readings for Schneider & Stickdorn book website and introductory chapter
   • Library Juice Academy offers a course by Joe Marquez, Service Design
   • Marquez & Downey article (need to add citation to Readings)
3. We brainstormed a signage inventory:
   • fall term
   • Seunghae suggested using floor plans to map signs
   • we can also use a table on the wiki to record the inventory - column headings? Katie will make a rough draft.
   • Useful, desirable book (see Readings) could inform the inventory design
4. We brainstormed how to track directional questions
   • Information desk already uses LibAnalytics to track reference stats - we can pull old stats
   • Using LibAnalytics we could create additional "data sets" for the Circulation desk
   • It might be practical to take a "typical week" approach, ask everybody working both desks to track questions carefully for one designated week - we began discussing what time of the term would make a good "typical week"
   • We might also create a space to record wayfinding challenges as we encounter them
5. Next meeting September 14 is our last chance to get together in person before scattering to the winds with fall term work schedules. Perhaps more field trips, plus walking discussion?

We took a self-guided walking tour of several new campus buildings, to get a sense of their wayfinding challenges and solutions (and either to feel better about our own challenges or to steal their ideas!)

Kelley Engineering Center

• temporary? restroom route signage that Dr. Lee had mentioned
• building map and directory near the elevator
• Most corridors off the atrium and elevator area are unmarked and deeply mysterious. By contrast, one corridor had bold, highly visible, well-positioned banner signs hanging from the ceiling.
• (Katie) the atrium and building interior are so beautiful and sleek with such minimal signage, but the overall effect is disorienting. Like being gloriously lost in an M.C. Escher work.

Austin Hall

• (Katie) the united, visible architectural core (elevators, stairs, restrooms, drinking fountains) gave me a more immediate sense of orientation compared to Kelley (and Valley).
• The interactive directory by the elevators that dynamically maps your route (photo) blew our collective mind and we want one!
• The self-service room reservation and lock system works with the OSU ID, cuts out the need for room key cards, cuts down on necessary staff intervention.

Student Experience Center

• obelisk-type directory inside the plaza entrance - ideally we could combine this architecture/location with the Austin interactive directory.
• large vertical wall banner in bold color in the atrium - its text is confusing, but its general appearance jibes with the color-coded floors idea.
• cool magnetic out-of-order caution tape for the elevator (photo)

Wrap-up

• Beth is meeting with Dr. Lee next Thursday. Any questions we want her to bring?
  • Best practices for doing a signage inventory?
• lobby concierge pilot - Beth encouraged us to think about it and send her comments and ideas.
• Kenya's internship ends before the end of the month, but she is interested in continuing to work with the Wayfinders beyond August. Thank you, Kenya!

The whole team got together (go team!) to discuss ideas for what next and to plan for Thursday's LEAD discussion.

1. We floated some great data collection ideas:
   1. Laurie suggested we take an inventory of all our signs, organized by signage "level" or category (e.g. official vs. "toilet paper" signage, "directional" vs. "regulatory" etc.)
   2. We dreamed about taking down most of our signs for a clean slate, then seeing what questions need to be answered with new signage.
   3. Another idea from Laurie and Beth is to assign students to go find examples of signs that help or don't help, perhaps as part of a class.
   4. After Laurie and Beth left for another meeting, we discussed following Dr. Lee's advice about the touchscreen kiosk: organizing a focus group and using that feedback as the basis for redesigning it. We imagine the touchscreen kiosk was a significant investment, but it seems to do a bunch of things halfway and nothing really well. So we'd be interested in pursuing touchscreen kiosk 2.0 to see if we can get more out of that investment.
2. Examples from our Java II surroundings frequently entered our conversation. We deconstructed the University Marketing wall decals, for example, which led to the idea of using wall decals as visually stimulating signage that is less architecturally permanent and therefore easy to test and change.
3. The way our Java II surroundings entered the conversation also led to the idea of taking group field trips to other campus buildings, specifically:
   1. Kelley Engineering Center
   2. Austin Hall
   3. Student Experience Center
   4. Kerr Admin
   5. Memorial Union
   6. GEM
4. Plan for Thursday:
   1. Katie agreed to show off these here wiki resources...
   2. ...present the above "what next" ideas
   3. ...raise Victoria's color-coded floors idea (described in July 20 notes)
   4. ...raise the notion of an entry kiosk/directory (Rima suggested we also locate the physical map brochure there) (this overlaps with ideas coming from the other groups, such as an Info Desk greeting center)
   5. ...and invite folks from the Chat/Info Desk groups to join us in the fall
   6. (all while trying to minimize the "um"s.)
   7. Rima agreed to take notes on the discussion.
5. Future meetings: The group decided it would be fruitful to continue meeting on a regular basis. Katie will schedule meetings for every other week throughout the rest of summer.
6. Oh, at one point Laurie urged us to Google the Portland mural project.

Video with slides

Great turnout! Strong participation from LEAD, ETS, TED, Ecampus. Representation from other campus buildings like Kidder and Waldo. Guin and Cascades phoned in too.

Seunghae Lee is associate professor in the School of Design and Human Environment (now part of the College of Business).

She recounted her first experience in the library, when she came in to pick up a poster she'd had printed for a conference and had to navigate to the 4th floor office. Later on she connected with Laurie Bridges and decided to conduct research here.

Today's academic libraries:

• Changing nature of the academic library: the diversity of functions and services make it a more complicated space
• She showed an excerpt of this Steelcase video about the design of the Grand Valley State University Pew library that illustrates the trend of (re)designing academic library space to reflect the ways students interact with the environment.
• "knowledge market"
• A user-centered approach to design and assessment is key.

Literature on academic library wayfinding:

• Wayfinding and gender - men and women have different wayfinding strengths, strategies, confidence levels.
• The "architectural core" of a building is the main cluster of stairs, elevators, drinking fountains, bathrooms. Our architectural core is problematic: some elements are scattered (the stairs, the avenue elevators), the elevator/restroom/fountain cluster is not visible, and those elevators do not open to the 4th floor for the general public.
• "Landmarks" are noticeable things in the environment that we end up using to give directions, like the Cow near the Circulation desk.
• First-time users of a space offer fresh eyes, (in)valuable insight.

Her research in the building has included a wayfinding study with an interactive map prototype, a survey, observations, and interviews.

Study findings:

• Signage needed at the entry - for example, the Circulation desk is difficult to notice the first time you enter.
• More accurate signage, not just more! We ought to focus on implementing only signage that is accurate and necessary.

Survey results:

• The restrooms are hard to find. She compared our struggle with the Kelley Engineering Center's - they finally gave in and installed wall signs.
• Identified high-use areas
• The physical floor maps were used by only half; the online floors maps were used by 30%.
• Using wayfinding aids (maps, other tools) was found to be a predictor of library experience.

Observation results:

• Identified low-use areas, blind spots

Interview results:

• Our biggest challenges come down to communication issues: confusion about what services are offered, the names of locations and services, the jargon of library terms.

Interactive map prototype demo:

• One of the assigned tasks involved going from the 3rd floor main elevators to Our Little Village. The shortest, most direct route cuts through the Archives and Maps area. But because that area looks exclusive, participants often hesitated and took a different route.
• As mentioned before, the 4th floor is blocked to the public on the core elevators. Our maps and signage need to do a better job of communicating this reality.
• She also demoed the University of Central Florida Libraries map developed on Google Maps. It features computer availability and a legend.

Signage recommendations:

• Take down inaccurate signage.
• Consider fixing the confusing background of the signs in the avenue. On the 2nd floor, for example, we have three different background colors for two entities (Circulation, Course Reserves) and two different background colors for one entity (Learning Commons). This confusing pattern makes the signs difficult to parse.

Questions and discussion:

• How to improve online map usage? Better promotion.
• Mobile app? Dr. Lee likes the idea of integrating with Google Maps, because it's hard to get people to download a separate app. There's also the issue of cell reception inside the building. She mentioned the MU building map within the campus map and the problem of scale in Google Maps.
• Do architects include wayfinding specialists in the building design process? Usually they're not included in the budget until later on, after the design process is well underway (or complete!)
• Funky colors on our signage - what color schemes should we be using? She mentioned ADA guidelines for background and text color contrast.
• What other general best practices for signage, such as including arrows? Hang signs from ceiling in a way that makes them noticeable from a distance. Wall signs are typically smaller. Background graphics tend to be counterproductive.
• Electronic signs? Helpful for boosting visibility, if lighting is a challenge - with backlighting, for example.
• What about the touchscreen kiosks? These were implemented after her study. Generally speaking, there are certain populations who never use them (at airports, for example). She recommends testing their usability with a focus group.
• What about using icons, images, symbols instead of text, to overcome language barriers? It requires rigorous user testing to be sure the images are understood across cultures (the example of the pill bottle from the pharmacy world).
• Besides airports, what other industries do wayfinding well? Airports have it easier with their open layouts. Airports communicate only the information that is necessary at a given point in the user's journey through the space. (For example, gate signage doesn't begin until you're past check-in and security.)
• Trey asked, is it more important to focus on the function of a space than on its name? The Collaborative Learning Center (CLC), for example.

1. Welcome Laurie (back from travels!) and Kenya and Victoria. We missed Rima due to a Circulation desk schedule conflict. (I'll try to schedule more carefully next time! -Katie)
2. Professor Seunghae Lee’s wayfinding project in the library (interactive map and article) and presentation Thu Jul 23
   
   1. Beth and Laurie gave us some background on the project. Indoor wayfinding researchers typically conduct studies in hospitals and airports, rarely libraries. Laurie connected with Professor Lee and invited her to conduct a study here. While it focused on her research priorities (wayfinding metrics using an eyetracking system and interactive map) and not on issues specific to our building, she inevitably made observations about our wayfinding challenges in the process. (A survey component of the study, for example, was not fully described in the article.)
   2. One observation she made: the colors on our official signage are problematic. The color contrast and letter height are not ADA compliant. And the background color scheme (one color per word) is confused, works against the text.
   3. We weren't able to implement the interactive map prototype developed for the study due to tech barriers, but Mike in ETS is interested in developing off the concept.
   4. Beth may approach Dr. Lee about collaborating on future research. And it may be possible to engage DHE students in class projects on specific building spaces.
   5. We talked about questions for Dr. Lee.
      1. Seeing many problems and feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the project - where to start? Beth pointed us to the Hahn study ("How first-year students navigate the stacks: Implications for improving wayfinding" - see Readings) for a good example of what we could do to begin.
      2. Best practices for working around structural flaws we can't change?
      3. Does wayfinding expertise figure into architectural planning?
3. Victoria presented the idea of color-coding the floors
   1. The problem is, when you emerge from an elevator in our building it is difficult to tell where you are, because every floor looks the same near the elevators. (Same challenge you encounter in a parking garage unless its levels have distinct visual identities.)
   2. Victoria took inspiration from the National Library of Latvia. She shared photos from her recent visit (note the directory and the ones with "color coding" in the title).
   3. The idea is to paint the walls in the elevator vestibules and coordinate them with the floor's furniture and signage. The building directory would reflect the designated floor colors.
   4. The color scheme could take inspiration from the Roy G. Biv rainbow sequence. It could also strive to match the "mood" of the floor (silent vs. collaborative).
   5. Other color considerations:
      1. Colors need to mask dirt on furniture.
      2. Colors need enough perceivable contrast to account for color blindness.
      3. We need to account for cultural differences in labeling and talking about the assigned colors.

April, Beth, Katie, and Rima got together (Laurie was traveling) to start the conversation and determine how to work on this project as a team.

1. Review the group’s charge
   1. Beth asked us to...take a coordinating role in signage & wayfinding improvements over the next academic year, working with others in the department and beyond. We brainstormed potential partners:
      1. all LEAD staff (especially during the academic year, once summer projects wrap up)
      2. including PTLs!
      3. Building manager, Learning Commons coordinator (Victoria)
      4. Communications Specialist Daniel Moret
      5. Dr. Lee and her DHE students
      6. TED librarians, SECO librarian Kelly McElroy, PROMISE intern Kenya Juarez
      7. Safety Committee
      8. ADA liaison (Beth, Katie, Victoria)
      9. ETS
   2. ...generate ideas about priorities
   3. ...build excitement about positive change (by sharing readings, for example)
2. Discuss preferred project management tools for working together
   1. We decided to use the wiki (voila!) to track projects, meeting notes, and readings, as well as Outlook to correspond and schedule meetings.
   2. Meeting in person will be more challenging once summer ends and we go back to our disparate work schedules. With momentum on some initiatives going into fall term we ought to be able to make progress via email.
3. Dr. Lee of DHE wayfinding article and lunch talk Thursday, July 23
   1. Seunghae Lee of Design and Human Environment conducted a wayfinding study in the Valley Library and published an article. She has information on problem areas for users trying to find their way, challenges with signage, and she also created an interactive map. Dr. Lee will present her findings and answer questions about user-centered design July 23.
   2. Beth wants to extend the lunch talk invite beyond the library staff to others in the building and on campus.
   3. How to promote lunch talk? OSU Today, email invite to Valley Bldg list, Outlook calendar invite? Facebook and other social media?
   4. We hope to glean "low-hanging fruit" from Dr. Lee's evidence-based recommendations.
   5. Beth mentioned Dr. Lee's comment that the "colors are all wrong" on the official signage throughout the building.

From Beth: "some photo examples of signs at my last place of work. These are fairly large to see from a distance as well. You get off the elevator and these are the signs you see (and the stairs are right there too) right across from you. Group study are the lower floors that are ok to be loud, then we had quiet above… the top floors were silent (like it is here really). I could see having the floor# in the sign too but we decided not to do that. These are actual decals so they could be removed and put elsewhere (though not removed easily).