Wayfinding systems keep employees on track

WHEN GENERAL MOTORS (GM) Worldwide Facilities Group decided to renovate its historical Warren, Mich., campus, designers encountered numerous challenges. Many new structures had been added and interiors changed since the industrial park was established in 1951. With 38 buildings accessible through 16 gates, updating the campus' wayfinding system was a paramount task in and of itself.

"We wanted to create an information system that was more engaging and accessible to the users, one that would reflect the history and pride of GM," said David Gibson, principal of Two Twelve Associates, a full service graphic design firm based in New York City. The results more than reflected GM's history and pride; they earned the firm a Merit Award in 2001 from the Society for Environmental Design.

But what is wayfinding? And why is it so important for your facility?

Wayfinding is orderly structuring and presentation of information required for people to access places. This typically involves signs or landmarks at decision points, facility maps in lobbies, well-structured pathways, and sight lines to show what lies ahead.

Safety concerns and liability issues are sparking more interest in the wayfinding systems for industrial settings. Indeed, facility executives are being forced to reevaluate the efficacy of a building's wayfinding system, because ignoring this design element could be costly from productivity and safety perspectives.

"The costs are often hidden," said Jan Carpman of Carpman Associates, a wayfinding consultancy based in Ann Arbor, Mich. "Current management may not be aware that they have a problem with wayfinding until new management comes in and has a hard time finding their way around."

Outdated Wayfinding Systems Cause Confusion

The main goal of wayfinding is to make it as easy as possible for unfamiliar users to get around, reasoning that if an unfamiliar user can navigate the facility an employee won't have problems either. A good information hierarchy makes clear to site visitors the rules about where they can and cannot go. But while most industrial facilities have some type of wayfinding system in place, chances are it is outdated and therefore not as effective as it could be.

"Do an annual or at least biannual internal audit of what's going on because there's sign erosion, which has to do with the fact that institutions change their facilities but forget to change their signs," says Jeffrey Corbin, founder and principal of Corbin Design, an environmental graphic design firm in Traverse City, Mich. "They put in a new front door, or they put on an addition, or they change the purpose of a space, and then they forget that they need to tell people about it."

The evolution of GM's facilities is a prime example. When Two Twelve Associates joined the renovation project, the wayfinding system was in dire need of an overhaul. "The wayfinding system was a very old," says Two Twelve Associates' designer, Yanira Hernandez. "It had been patched together through the years with original signs and big advertising signs displaying the names of each brand."

Restoring Order With Nomenclature, Numbering

Changes over the years caused confusion in building nomenclature at GM, so redefining the campus meant reassigning building names and populations. The Cadillac building did not produce Cadillacs, for example, so the name was arbitrary. The solution was to rename the buildings after employees that made significant impacts at GM.

"Any facility that has been around for a while has a likelihood of mismatched signs, both aesthetic-ally and in terms of nomenclature and wording," said Wayne Hunt, principal of Hunt Design Associates in Pasadena, Calif. "If it's a very big facility, the points of entry are probably not unified and probably have bizarre numbering systems. We try to rename things and recount things in a way that makes more sense and restores order."

The new wayfinding strategy at GM was "approach, enter, find." This required signs at gates, internal roadways, and building exteriors and interiors. A transport system was designed to shuttle employees back and forth from company parking lots to the buildings in which they worked, a strategy that also aimed to reduce worker anxiety over the changes in the campus' master plan.

Capitalizing on the Brand

An equally important goal at GM was capitalizing on the brand name. Besides helping employees and visitors navigate an area, exterior wayfinding can reinforce a company's identity.

"It's as if companies have really not leveraged their manufacturing facilities in the marketplace," says Corbin. "If I drive by an automobile plant, I might see the logo but there's nothing exciting about it. Companies like GM are beginning to realize that they can use what heretofore has been thought of as very functional signage for reinforcement of their identity."

GM is not alone in exploring this wayfinding trend. Samsung developed a company-wide wayfinding system that has already been implemented : in Mexico and the United Kingdon Samsung's main goal in updating its wayfinding schemes was identity oriented, and they enlisted the help of Hunt Design Associates.

Hunt accomplished this goal by creating a unified visual language that linked the diverse building types When you have several mismatched buildings, he reasoned, if they all have the same kind of directional signs around them, then they will appear to belong to the same owner. The signs at Samsung were related by color, type-- face, and architectural style to present users with a community feel.

Wayfinding Systems Increase Safety

Of greater importance to many facility executives, though, are safety and liability concerns. Industrial settings carry a greater risk of injury than most types of facilities, due to the nature of the work and the heavy machinery. Wayfinding in an industrial environment is often about creating a sense of assuredness for employees and visitors. The goal in this respect is to keep people who are moving from one point to another where they ought to be, and out of the way of the manufacturing process.

"In some industrial environments, for safety reasons and for reasons of trade secrets, there are restricted areas and unrestricted areas," said Corbin. "It's important to be clear about these things when you create an information hierarchy."

Nowhere is this more critical than in nuclear power facilities, where workers can be exposed only to predetermined levels of radiation in a given year. A nuclear facility called in Corbin Design to develop a wayfinding scheme that would lower radiation risks for workers that were charged with changing fuel cells or maintaining equipment in high radiation areas.

"One of the problems they were having was finding the equipment they had to work on. We were able to devise a system that reduced the time that it took people to find out where they were supposed to go by about 20 percent," said Corbin. "That meant that all of the people who were in there working could work 20 percent longer during the course of a year because they weren't wasting time trying to find out where they were supposed to be."

Wayfinding is More Than Signs

Of course, while signs play a significant role in effective wayfinding schemes, wayfinding is much more than signage. Experts said landmarks play a key role in wayfinding systems.

"The best wayfinding is that which leads you, not points you. Signs tend to point - Landmarks tend to lead," said Corbin. "If there are wavs to create visual or environmental landmarks in a facility, then that sort of precludes the need for so many signs."

Think about Cinderella's Castle at Disneyland. It's the ultimate landmark because you can see it from any location in the park and orientate yourself by heading back toward the castle until you figure out where you are.

"There's nothing better than seeing the destination itself, or an icon of the destination that becomes a wayfinding target," said Hunt. "Words are one thing, but iconic visuals are much more powerful. You are looking for the environment to give you a clue and if you don't do that, you default to the signs. Signs are a support mechanism. We like the fewest signs with the fewest words."

The opposite extreme is using too few signs. The key is to provide options for the preferences of different users.

"A lot of people try to sell the idea that you can do wayfinding using only landmarks," said Corbin. "Well, for some people you can, but not for everybody. It's a nice element. It's a nice way to interject what some would call artwork into the public environment, but you need a combination of both signs and landmarks."

Wayfinding is More Than Landmarks

Successful wayfinding also make use of well-structured pathways and regions of differing visual character. Sun Microsystems' facilities in Menlo Park, Calif, and New Jersey feature public spaces that have a "Main Street" and offer the synergy of a city's downtown, complete with a coffee bar.

"The hierarchical paths of the circulation patterns are something that we always strive for," said John Spotorno, director of design for Bottom Duvivier, a collaborative organization of architects, interior designers, industrial designers, and workplace consultants based in Redwood City, Calif. "That does a number of things - It reduces the distraction level for individual workers and it also helps people find each other in these common areas more easily."

The use of color and materials can also help employees and visitors find their way, said Spotorno. He calls it the "yellow brick road" concept because the scheme highlights main circulation paths with better materials, more interesting lighting fixtures, and different kinds of carpet patterns so users can follow the main path through the facility. Spotorno's team also tried to create views to the outside in the original facility design.

"Being able to see outside gives you a better orientation of what side of the building you are on, what the weather is like, and what time of day it is," said Spotorno. "If we can't get glimpses to the outside, then we try to capture some sort of a vista, like a brightly colored wall, so that as you look down the hall you can see something going on there that leads you that way."

Sun Microsystems' wayfinding scheme also takes an international approach that breaks language barriers, using icons instead of words wherever possible, such as a telephone or restroom symbol.

Best Practices in Wayfinding

"Wayfinding systems that are most effective have a functional redundancy," said Corbin. "We have landmarks for people who look for landmarks; we have signs for people who look for signs; and we have colors and words and all kinds of different cues, whether visual or verbal or both, that people can use. Some people like maps, some don't. Using a combination of these elements results in the best wayfinding systems."

Done creatively, wayfinding systems can also interject some visual stimulation and excitement, said Corbin, and perhaps even change an environment that is otherwise sterile and functional. This can be done at a low cost compared to rebuilding the plant, putting in skylights, or doing some major renovation. Electronic signage is one option that Corbin expects more facilities to explore.

"When the cost comes down we are going to be in a situation where a lot of signs are plasma screens and you just program them each morning," says Corbin. A plasma screen can announce that a certain part of the plant is going to be closed for the morning for retooling, for example, or announce an electrical failure.

Cost of Wayfinding Systems

The cost of wayfinding systems varies from facility to facility, but what can be estimated is the cost of updating a system. Experts suggest that companies budget about 15 percent of the cost of the original program for yearly updating. The cost of updating wayfinding systems can be high, but the cost of not implementing wayfinding systems could be even higher.

"Signs are probably 1 percent of the cost of a building and they don't get thought about that much," said Corbin. "On the flip side, signs are only 1 percent of the cost of a building and they can have a tremendous influence on the effectiveness of the use of the building."