‘We must use time as a tool, not a couch.’ John F Kennedy
Like all designers specialising in wayfinding design we believe everyone deserves to move through the world with confidence, clarity, calm and at their own pace, placing as much value on their time as we do on our own. Time is the most precious commodity we all own.
When practicing wayfinding design, we rarely consider signs at all… they are the last 10% manifestation of the overall process so when developing strategies, we place paramount importance on the user’s time; that’s our starting point, and that’s what this journal is all about…
Let us introduce you to… Time Agile Wayfinding™ (Yes, we coined it. Yes, we trademarked it, and yes, we’re rather proud of it!)
When we consider time as the single most important thing that determines how people feel as they journey through spaces, being supported, being (timely) informed and feeling in control of their personal circumstance and emotion.
It’s something we’ve always – although not necessarily pre-consciously – considered when looking at a space or place that required our services. We’ve never really had a name for it… but now we do and so it’s time to formalise what makes our approach different; it’s a tool that we, as a studio, use as a lens when looking objectively at projects and the clients can understand and embrace.
An example of Time Agile Wayfinding™ in action is a project from over 20 years ago, one we’re very proud of and which is still very much performing today… designed for The British Museum.
We were brought in by the British Museum in the summer of 2013 because of the need to guide visitors through the Great Court to the new ‘World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre’ (WCEC), at the time the largest redevelopment in the museum’s 260-year history. The WCEC was to be accessed via the northwest corner of the Great Court.
The challenge was to move visitors through the gates off Great Russell Street, across the South Court, up the twelve steps (or via the platform lifts) up to the South Entrance, through the entrance vestibule (with its rudimentary bag check tables), through the threshold to the Great Court and around the central Reading Room to the WCEC.
Simple on the face of it, except that we knew that wayfinding is rarely just getting people from A to B. At peak visiting periods during the day, visitors spent their time queuing – corralled – across the South Court to the steps, queuing up the steps and through the South Entrance bag checks; once through the (ever- so-slightly surly!) bag checks they joined a mêlée* up to the threshold of the Great Court.
The source of the congestion appeared to be the threshold itself; people would stop in the entrance threshold to the Great Court, admiring the Foster + Partners designed spectacle which was the largest covered public space and glass roof in Europe. This congestion was exacerbated by visitors stopping to read promotional materials announcing current and future exhibitions on ‘steles’ (freestanding totem signs) located on either side of the threshold, just inside the Great Court.
It was clear that this blockage at the entrance threshold had to be removed, so that we could help enable visitors to enjoy their time viewing amazing historical artefacts and all the museum had and still has to offer. The nineteen steles in the Great Court featured wayfinding information directing visitors to facilities such as toilets, cloakrooms, the Members’ Room and the like, along with promotional information announcing events and exhibitions.
After much consideration and consultation with the client team and their accessibility stakeholder groups, we embarked on a strategy that involved;
– Physically separating promotional and wayfinding information; the promotional information would appear on banners positioned at high level on the perimeter walls of the Great Court and the centrally positioned Reading Room. The steles scattered across the Great Court would be reduced in number, from nineteen to ten and would feature wayfinding information only.
– The problematic steles located at the entrance threshold to the Great Court would be removed completely.
Along with reducing the amount of time visitors spent entering the museum and passing across the Great Court, the physical separation of wayfinding and promotional information improved clarity enormously. Scarlet bands were incorporated along the tops of the wayfinding steles and backdrops to the ticketing and information desks, communicating ‘information’ and ‘facilities.
People don’t visit a World-class (in the truest sense) museum to look at signs; nor do they deserve to spend inordinate amounts of their precious time queuing. The client was delighted with the project outcomes (as were we – a 48% reduction in signage!) and the strategy is still in place to this day.
We simply applied the principle of respecting the most important commodity that we all possess… our time.
Time. Guided.
*Ian recalls “I was an avid Chelsea fan during the mid-1980’s, popping up to Stamford Bridge every other week to witness the wonderful skill of players such as Dixon, Speedie and Nevin, managed by the genius John Neal. Upon the final whistle, the Shed End would disgorge its human cargo… jostling cheek by jowl towards the stadium exits. I can remember stumbling along amongst this throng, trying to hold my breath as the smell of stale lager, burgers and body odour was appalling. Not quite as bad as this, the visitor experience at the British Museum was still surprising unpleasant.
When I say ‘stumbling along’ the police insisted that you removed your (Dr Martens) laces at the entrance turnstiles and tie them around adjacent crash barriers. The laces were never there whenever I went back for them!“
To read more on our British Library project, click here to see the case study.
