Hospital spaces have the ability to provide physical and emotional well-being. However, the journey through health systems is becoming stressful. The ease of wayfinding has an important role to play, as it reduces anxiety and enhances the experience of the facilities users visit. This paper is an exploration of how visual communication design enhanced the wayfinding experience in a New Zealand hospital.
The objective of the study was to demonstrate the holistic approach of a multi-channel system of wayfinding improvements through participatory design approach methods and prototyping at the hospital facility and explore how communication design could be employed to enhance the user’s experience.
A children’s outpatient department was chosen to test and evaluate prototypes, as it was scheduled for renovation. A participatory framework was developed to involve stakeholders including hospital staff and patients. Observations and photo documentation investigating end-to-end services outlined the user’s pathway to and through the department. Additionally, role playing was used to create journey maps, and interviews were conducted with the hospital staff to collect information on context, journey through the space, and problems encountered. Graphics were later developed to show the whole journey through the department. The concept of place making was applied to make prototypes of communication materials (print and environmental) that were tested by patients and hospital staff through role plays, surveys, and workshops. An experience map was produced with wayfinding tasks and the data collected was analyzed against the journey path. As a result, actual environmental graphics were installed to lead to the children’s department and make it more visible. At the end, a survey was done to evaluate the satisfaction of the final design.
Prototypes for testing design solutions were very effective in pointing out problem areas that needed to be addressed beyond signage. A conflict appeared to exist between wayfinding using visual cues and hospital space planning for functional efficiency. A holistic approach (print and built environment channels) must be taken to improve wayfinding by taking into consideration the patient’s overall hospital experience. Environmental graphic design provides a tool to better serve the needs of hospital staff and patients to save wayfinding time and increase efficiency. The participatory design process succeeded in translating the views of the stakeholders into an actual design and should continue to be the basis of future wayfinding solutions.
The visual communication system designed for the study was difficult to test for consistency because it was limited to an isolated component in one department at the hospital amidst an existing set of dominant and complex physical conditions. The patient/parent surveys were ineffective due to low response rates. Furthermore, the prototypes developed were site specific and could not be generalized.