In wayfinding and signage industry, every project is a unique opportunity of using the skills and expertise of the designers and project implementation experts. Each project carries a set of challenges that ensures that the designers have to rethink and redesign everything from scratch. Signage is an important aspect that adds to the overall environment of any place.
Even in this industry, hospital signage and wayfinding solutions are unique in terms of their diversity, complication and application constraints. There is an added dimension of dealing with the stress and anxiety that is an essential part of any hospital visit.
A hospital signage system caters to three distinct classes of visitors. The first is the staff of the hospital that includes everyone from the nursing staff, doctors and allied medical professionals. This class is often very familiar with the general layout of the hospitals and requires little input from the wayfinding system. however, one of the important requirements of this class is very clear labeling that is instantly identifiable and readable. This is essential when the staff is engaged in an emergency and could not pay much attention to anything else. This class expects every sign and pointer to be in a specific location.
The second class of the visitors includes patients and related categories. This is often the largest class of people, making up the bulk of the population at anytime. This class has varied demands because of the variable composition. A major subset of the class is the patients who are either on outpatient or in-patient status. These patients require a wayfinding system that is able to guide them to the desired location within the hospital. This means that the wayfinding should be simple enough to be understood by people with little exposure to icons and pictographs used in traditional wayfinding designs.
Finally, the third class of the visitors is those that cannot be grouped under the first two classes. These visitors include vendors, supplier and cleaning crews who are interested in getting things done as fast as possible. They require a wayfinding system that could lead them to their destination without any fuss. They prefer to follow a line based signage system rather than looking up for signs at every corner.
As evident fro the analysis, a hospital signage system has to cater to three distinct classes. Each class has its own requirements and demands from the wayfinding system. There is some overlap in these demands but overall there is little common ground that could help designers come up with a system with as little problems as possible.
an important step forward in designing a workable hospital wayfinding system is to use a digital signage system. this system could b used to convey information that is dynamic in nature. Thus instead of multiple signs, the hospital signage basically comprises of a digital signboard that could display information as and when required by the system. The system could tailor information to suit the needs of all or just a section of the audience.
Digital signage could also help in reducing the administrative chores of the staff.
