Evaluating the inclusivity of hospital wayfinding systems for people with diverse needs and abilities

Wayfinding in hospitals is a complex problem since patients, who are likely to be under stress, may have to navigate their way to multiple locations in the course of a single visit. While good wayfinding design can reduce stress, poor wayfinding can not only increase individuals' anxiety but also generate additional costs for the hospital due to: lost time among staff members who need to direct patients rather than concentrate on their designated task; missed appointments or delayed meetings; and additional security staff to ensure that patients do not enter restricted areas. We investigated to what extent a questionnaire, developed by collecting data about the subjective experiences of wayfinders with diverse needs and abilities, could uncover wayfinding problems in hospitals.

The methodology we developed involved four steps: creating an initial questionnaire based on the literature; customizing the questionnaire to a hospital environment; validating and verifying the questionnaire; and evaluating the questionnaire's added value at nine other hospitals.

The questionnaire's generality and added value were demonstrated since many types of wayfinding problems were uncovered at the nine hospitals that other methods had overlooked or regarded as relatively unimportant. The research emphasizes the centrality and uniqueness of the wayfinder rather than that of the institute in determining what people need.

Our findings can contribute to understanding wayfinding issues in hospitals and to sensitize designers to the needs and knowledge levels of wayfinders when designing hospitals.