Wayfinding, Part 1: Paths, Not Puzzles

In my previous commentary, I wrote about the quietly brilliant decision to retain the same ambulance bay even as the emergency department moved into a new building. But what happens when the destination is not where we typically expect it to be? At Farrer Park Hospital, a private hospital in Singapore, the 24-hour emergency clinic is tucked away on the second floor. Rather than asking drivers to interpret signs and make sense of the layout, the hospital painted the road leading to the clinic red, turning navigation into something that can be followed rather than figured out.

Farrer Park Hospital’s emergency clinic is accessed via a multistorey carpark, an unconventional route made intuitive by the continuous red pathway.

Wayfinding is commonly framed as a problem of information. When people find themselves lost, we respond with more signs, clearer maps, and better labels, with the assumption that these travelers will notice, interpret, and remember what they see. The task appears straightforward enough, that we simply need to place the right information at the right locations. Yet what seems clear from the designer’s perspective can be surprisingly easy to miss for someone unfamiliar with the space and rushing to get to their destination.

More likely, most of our wayfinding experience feels like another episode of The Amazing Race. Navigation becomes an Easter egg hunt, as we move through crowded corridors and combing each information display we see, searching for and making sense of cues amidst a field of attention-grabbing noise. So, it's located in the purple zone? Is the purple zone distinctively purple? Does it come before or after the brown zone? Where's the brown zone?

Success in wayfinding design thus requires an appreciation of the cognitive work placed on transient visitors. It demands sustained attention as we continuously scan our surroundings, lest we overlook a critical sign and miss our turn. We interpret icons, arrows, labels, and at times foreign languages, translating what we see into navigational instructions for a three-dimensional space. We keep doing this while dealing with other stuff at hand, such as keeping track of people and property along the way.

Wayfinding, then, is not a single decision but a sequence of decisions, each step dependent on the last, often compounded by time pressure, unfamiliar surroundings, distraction, and competing priorities.

One way of making wayfinding less cognitively demanding is to introduce “breadcrumbs”. Rather than presenting information all at once, the environment reveals the path progressively, one step at a time. Each marker reassures the traveler that they are still on course, allowing them to move forward without having to stop, recall, or reconsider. The journey becomes less about solving a problem, and more about connecting the dots that quietly lead the way.

Upon arriving at Newark Airport, a trail of breadcrumbs guided me to the AirTrain, and onward to my hotel’s shuttle pick-up point.

If breadcrumbs reduce the effort of wayfinding, continuous lines remove it even further. Lines embedded in floors or walls provided a persistent signal that allows us to track without fear of interruption. Because they are always within view, they reduce the need for active search, minimize reliance on memory, and eliminate much of the interpretive effort required by traditional signs. Just like the Farrer Park Hospital example, the path is clearly paved, and we need only follow.

Serving as an interchange for three subway lines, Outram Park MRT Station uses colored directional strips along its walls to guide commuters toward the correct platforms. These continuous visual cues extend across long walkways and around corners, allowing people to follow their intended line without needing to suddenly stop and search for signs. This also keeps the traffic moving safely, especially during peak traveling periods.

Outram Park MRT Station features good user experience designs, such as these directional lines on the walls that intuitively communicate and subtly reassure commuters of the direction they are heading. Read more about them in this news report.

Wayfinding offers a practical exercise in human factors. It reminds us that systems do not succeed simply because information is available, but because people can use it in real conditions. Transit enthusiast Vareck Ng illustrates this well. He does what human factors practitioners are trained to do: observe where people hesitate, analyze the paths they gravitate toward, and capture the questions they repeatedly ask. His self-made directional signs do not introduce new information. Rather, they surface at the moments they are needed the most.

Good wayfinding does not ask, “Did you read the sign?” It ensures there is little need to read at all. Does your signage system present a path, or a puzzle?