Wayfinding and Navigation Exercise
In ... The Image of the City (1960), Kevin Lynch coined the term wayfinding to describe his concept of environmental legibility—that is, the elements of the built environment that allow us to navigate successfully through complex spaces like cities and towns. The most fundamental underlying metaphor of the World Wide Web is navigation through a space populated by places we call web “sites,” and thus the wayfinding metaphor is perfect for thinking about web navigation. 1
Draw on Lynch, chaps 3 and 4, especially chap 4.
Go to Target or WalMart, or L&M Fleet Farm or Home Depot, or Lueken's or Marketplace. Hobby Lobby might be interesting, too.
You can do this in pairs or solo. Take notes and when you can, take pics.
1. Walk the aisles and the store looking at the surroundings you're in, and how you are directed into and out of spaces. Look on the floor for guides or signals, on the shelving at the ends of rows, above the shelving for labels. Use of floor markings, and of carpeting. Watch for non-written signals. Watch for regularities and patterns of placement. Make notes on the following elements as they appear in the store. Some may not. As you locate these, name them in your notes.
- Paths: Familiar streets, walkways, subway routes, bus lines, aisles,
- Edges: The physical barriers of walls, fences, rivers, or shorelines, counters, shelves
- Districts: Places with a distinct identity, such as, in New York, Chinatown, Wall Street, and Greenwich Village, Baby Care, Women's Clothing, others
- Nodes: Major intersection or meeting places, such as the clock in New York’s Grand Central Terminal, deli, coffee shop, others
- Landmarks: Tall, visible structures that allow you to orient over long distances: category signs, area signs, advertising signs, others
2. Record the store's classification scheme from the general (produce > vegetables > ) to the specific (carrots). Make notes. Pay special attention to the labels: the terms used to name the groupings. These are navigation aids. Take note of some of the items that are part of each group.
3. Create a map of the store, showing wayfinding features and the store's classification scheme. You can do this from memory if you like, or by referring to your notes and pictures. Bring the map to class to hand in. If you create the map online, make it sharable.
A grocery list classification scheme
Produce < class general
Vegetables < sub-class less general, more specific
Carrots < item specific
Onions
Lettuce
...
Fruit Onions
Lettuce
...
Apples
Organges
Bananas
...
Organges
Bananas
...
Dairy < class
Milk
Cheese
Yogurt
Cheese
Yogurt
CategoryExercise