The ID-LAB way is now the NSW Health way
As the leading hospital wayfinders, we know what it takes to design wayfinding systems that work for all users. We put that knowledge down on paper in the form of the NSW Health Wayfinding for Healthcare Facilities guidelines.
We believe that healthcare facilities need to fast-track better wayfinding now before the opportunity passes to make substantive, positive change. We also believe that the answer to many shared hospital wayfinding challenges lies not in more signage, but in better, more intuitive wayfinding guided by a holistic approach.
In the new guidelines, we wanted to achieve a number of ambitious goals. Most of all, we wanted to help the guidelines users to prioritise the experience of everyone who entered its facility. To do this, we had to change the way they thought about wayfinding. We had to enliven the processes and thinking within it via our own distinct methodology for hospital wayfinding.
Addressing the NSW Health guidelines gap
The previous (2014) edition of the NSW Health wayfinding guidelines – which we also authored – was a solid document, but some of the thinking about wayfinding has changed in the last 7 years.
For us and any other wayfinders focused on the user, signage is only one of the tools that can be used to assist people to find their way, especially around a large and complex hospital facility. To meet our own high standards, we had to ensure the updates achieved a number of things. The document needed to:
Communicate the importance of wayfinding in hospitals
Educate the guidelines users on what holistic wayfinding looked and felt like
Empower them with a blueprint to do the best they can for the wayfinding in their hospital
Emphasise the importance of managing and maintaining their wayfinding in perpetuity
Making holistic wayfinding the norm for NSW Health
The call for more holistic wayfinding was already being heard by NSW Health before we were engaged to provide these updates. In part, this was because the role of the hospital in a community had changed. They weren’t only for the sick anymore. They were now spaces that had to both represent and serve the community. This meant that any updates we recommended would need to do the same. We had to ensure what we recommended could help healthcare facility managers to both connect with and provide for the diverse needs in their local community.
Working group meetings and one-on-one interviews with those who used the existing guidelines would be critical to ensuring the guidelines were practical, comprehensive and inclusive. Throughout the information gathering process, we spoke directly with those on the ground, namely facility managers, architects and front line hospital staff.
At the end of this process our task was much clearer. As every hospital space is different, we couldn’t prescribe a ‘one size fits all’ wayfinding solution. Instead, we needed to provide guidelines users with the direction and information they would need to create a successful wayfinding strategy for their facility, including universal design, accessibility, cultural safety information, and use of technology, to name a few.
However, the key items that came out of the analysis process were more than these individual elements – they provided the blueprint for what holistic wayfinding in healthcare facilities could and should look, feel and operate like.
We also had to ensure that any updates we made fit within the parameters set by NSW Health. Specifically, we needed to make sure that any update we suggested elevated the user’s experience. Fortunately, this is always our focus.
The leaders in hospital wayfinding
It was a thrill to be recognised as the experts in hospital wayfinding through this project. We’ve relished the opportunity to share our knowledge of wayfinding and (hopefully) ensure that through these guidelines we can support more hospitals to improve their overall user experience. The user sessions taught us more about how to effectively communicate what we do as wayfinders.
Now that the guidelines are live, we’ve had the chance to reflect on what they’ve achieved. We are always learning new things, especially through our approach at ID-LAB. If we were to write the guidelines this year, there are some elements we would change to reflect what we’ve learned throughout the last 12 months. After all, wayfinding is by its very nature an ongoing process that is ever-changing.
Ultimately, these guidelines don’t provide a single, static solution. Instead, they are a framework for how to manage and maintain a system that works for all users and their changing needs.
You can download a copy of the guidelines HERE.