02 What’s In
Finding your way from
By Emma Green, NATSPEC Communications
Navigating through the built environment is a universal part of life in both public and private spaces. Moving through a space to get from one location to another involves informationgathering and decision-making processes for orientation and movement. This is the overall process of wayfinding. Successful wayfinding design allows people to determine their location and destination, plan their route and execute the plan, negotiating any potential changes. Wayfinding is a complex cognitive and perceptual process. Designing a successful wayfinding system can therefore be a difficult task. Wayfinding is often addressed solely by signage. However, when a space is holistically designed, meaning that the spatial configuration and information wayfinding are considered in parallel, this facilitates the wayfinding process for users of the built environment. Successful wayfinding through holistic design is a key tenet of universal design. Universal design is the design of buildings, products or environments to make them accessible and usable to all people of different ages and abilities over time, without the need for adaptation or specialised design.
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