Proceedings of: Workshop on Improving Building Design for Persons with Low Vision

Cognitive process (slides 2 - 4).

[Wayfinding is] really more of a cognitive process. You gather information at the beginning. You cite and execute a path to take. And then you continue to process information on the way.

A good analogy for sighted people is when you’re explaining to someone how to get to your house, you say, “Get off the highway at – they give you those three exits. Take that street west. Turn right at the first stoplight. Go through the stop sign. Take a left. It’s the second blue house on the left.”

We don’t get those kinds of cues, necessarily, in buildings very often because we don’t have street names, you know, so we’re still trying to use those same identifying cues from the architecture or from the signage or from the finishes applied to that space to help us navigate space. And that’s even harder when you can’t see what you’re supposed to be using as those visual cues. So a real cognitive process.

Some of the cues that we use in way finding, a lot of these are sort of self-explanatory.

Audio Cues (slide 3)

We use audio cues to know that the elevator has arrived. It makes a dinging noise. Now, whether or not you just got an up elevator instead of the down one you wanted isn’t always obvious when the tone is exactly the same. Some newer buildings are going to vocal tones that say, “Going up,” “Going down,” and announcing the floor number as you reach it.

Emergency warnings. I was reading the emergency exit plan in the hotel last night, and it had a line that said, “The emergency warning sounds like, ‘Woo, woo.’”

So we expect those audio cues –

Question from [Participant]: Was that with a Washington or Minnesota accent? Many languages have “Woo, woo.”

Response by Erin Schambureck: You know, so sometimes, they’re kind of humorous, but they do provide some information. Again, an audio warning that is a noise, a loud noise, will tell you that something is wrong, but may not tell you what is wrong and how to proceed. My mom was saying that the smoke detectors in the house went off while my dad was out of town last week, and it was a female voice telling her that the battery was dying at 2:30 in the morning. So it’s helpful to know what’s gone wrong.

And so we could be a little more clear about the audio cues that we’re providing in a way finding system.

Tactile Cues (slide 3)

Floor texture changing is a really big tactile cue. If you’ve got floor material that is of a similar tone or hue and you change that floor texture, someone’s going to know that something has changed.

Braille and tactile maps. Braille is a great tactile cue, but as people have pointed out, you have to find the sign first and then you have to be a part of that five percent of the low-vision population that can actually read Braille in the first place. You know, that’s a pretty small number. So how can we use tactile maps, other raised lettering, or other things that will provide better [information]?

Visual Cues (slide 4)

We’re also looking at visual cues. This is what everybody, for the most part, understands, that we’re looking at the signage that says which direction the elevator is, a visual texture change, whether it’s a change in the color of the flooring, the color of the wall, that you’ve got an accent paint color to identify the elevators.

The lighting. You can have consistent lighting throughout a hallway and then have a highlighted spot on something to highlight that there’s something different going on there or a change in the type of lighting at a location.

The signage. If you see a door that says, “Authorized personnel only,” you’re not going to go beyond that door and you know you’re not authorized. Flags for alarm pulls. And then on the right you’ve got the stair. It says, “In case of fire, door will release.” Well, okay. So then evidently I’m not supposed to use that stairwell on a normal basis.