Wayfinding and Orientation Information
What is wayfinding?
Wayfinding and orientation information is used to supplement and support a person’s outdoor and indoor orientation and navigation of a physical space.
There are a number of different techniques, including:
- Signage
- Navigation guides
- Digital navigation & Bluetooth Beacon Systems
Signage
Signage can be used to convey orientation information to a user through a number of methods including:
- Tactile Graphics
- Braille signage
- Digital tags
- QR Codes
- Voiceye cube
- NFC Tags
- High Contrast Visuals
- Light text on a dark background
- Tactile Maps and Guides
Navigation Guides
There are a variety of low tech and high tech solutions to wayfinding. The following are examples of low tech solutions to assist with navigation:
- Cane troughs
- Auditory signals
- Tactile surfaces
- High contrast path indicators
- Using a combination of these and other systems will help guide users in a way that works best for them.
Digital Wayfinding Systems
A digital wayfinding system enables a user to have their smartphone describe locations, nearby points of interest, and directions to different places in great detail.
Indoor & Outdoor Systems
Smartphones are always trying to determine our location to provide relevant information.
They use a combination of
GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Compass, and cell tower triangulation.
When indoors, a number of these technologies do not work reliably.
- For example: There is no way for your phone to know what floor of a building you’re on.
Beacons
What is a beacon?
- A small, physical device that broadcasts a serial number via Bluetooth.
- Completely self-contained – does not connect to the Internet.
- Requires software on a device and a database of information in the cloud to operate.
- Primarily used for positioning or ad-hoc points of interest.
- Can be detected at distances of up to 80 meters.
- New technologies such as RTTC may replace physical beacons in the future.
Orientation
Digital wayfinding systems provide information on your surroundings.
For example, here is what a user would hear and see on their screen when they enter our main boardroom:
“You are at the AAACT main boardroom. When facing into the boardroom, there is a table going down the
middle of the boardroom going left to right, with chairs
on either side. The light switches are on the left wall, next to the door. The screen is on the right wall. A teleconference unit can be found in the middle of the
table.”
Points of Interest & Navigation
These systems also contain information on points of interest and how to navigate to them.
For example, if you wanted to find the washrooms from our main boardroom, here is what you would see and hear:
“To the washrooms, walk five meters and turn right. Then, walk two meters and turn left at the first hallway. Walk
twenty meters. The men’s washroom will be the first door on the right side, followed by the water fountains, followed by
the women’s washroom, followed by the staircase to leave
the floor. In front of this staircase is the meetup spot for those requiring assistance in the event of an evacuation.”
Assistance
If an individual ever requires assistance, a “call for help” button could be present in the application they are using to access the digital wayfinding system.
How do I Choose a System?
There are three major factors that should influence your decision on what digital wayfinding system to choose:
- Multi-platform (e.g. iOS & Android)
- Open data (e.g. OpenStreetMap, APIs, etc.)
- Bilingual
