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| Hard cover book, 9.25 x 11 inches (235 x 280 mm), 260 pages, with several hundred illustrations. |
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This book brings together expertise on all three of the elements that comprise wayfinding within the context of the built environment: |
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- architecture
- graphics
- verbal human interaction
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In other words, this book is not just about signs; it is about everything one needs to know in order to design settings that will be user-friendly and that will work the way they should – at least as far as the all-important communications aspects are concerned. |
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Readers will gain a better understanding of the wayfinding difficulties people have and why they have them; they will also discover what wayfinding is and how the process works through detailed examination of the architectural, graphic, aural, and tactile components involved in wayfinding design. |
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Wayfinding is, in effect, a prescription for a much-needed design discipline. |
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| The authors have based this book on five major premises: |
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1 Wayfinding problems are real; they are neither imaginary nor the result of wilful stupidity on the part of the public, as is so often alleged. |
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2 Users of the built environment (i.e., the public-at-large) do not necessarily constitute a homogeneous group of able-bodied people. |
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3 Having a graphic designer “do the graphics” for a building after the architect has already designed and constructed it is not what wayfinding is about. |
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4 These very real problems are soluble and if we cared enough, as a society, to address ourselves to them seriously, we would make a major contribution to the livableness of our cities and our institutions. |
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5 The statement that “no one ever died from getting lost” is untrue, irrelevant, and wholly unworthy of us. |
