Are virtual holographic assistants of value?

Our local station, Kings Cross, now has one of these holographic assistants reminding people not to take heavy luggage up the escalators but to use the lift instead.

You will note that just to the right, at the bottom of the escalator, is a sign giving the same message. That sign has been there since the station reopened and, we can assume, has not had any impact on people carrying luggage on the escalators and presumably on accident rates.  So they have decided to add to it with this more visible solution.  (this was also picked up by The Guardian)

These holographic assistants have become more common place since we first saw them at Luton Airport a few years ago.

We think the lessons for their use are much clearer now. The main point that they are not a replacement for a real person and should never be used as such.

What they do provide is a different channel to communicate information in a way that can attract attention. In this case, and the same when used to prepare passengers for airport security areas, they deliver information in a way that makes us notice it...at least for a while. This is good in places where static signage is not very noticeable, perhaps because of the complexity of the environment, and is clearly ignored.

The design challenge is probably reflected in the need to regularly vary the way in which this same information is presented as we become desensitised to each approach.

This should include the use of more playful solutions, which we have highlighted a number of times on this blog.  Although designed as a promotion for the Simpsons movie*, you could argue that this was a great way to draw peoples attention to the end of the escalator and improve safety.

* actually it looks like this was never used as an actual advert and the escalators in the movie was created by a street artist in Frankfurt.

Wayfinding tech - does it help?

There have been a number of technology solutions emerging with the potential to support wayfinding.

For indoor environments there is a move to more dynamic signage that offers the potential to adapt the message as necessary.  A new product suggests we might also be able to do it with the floor soon - www.stuff.tv/philips/led-carpets-could-banish-boring-floors-good/news.  The product uses LEDs in the carpet to be able to show pretty much whatever you want.

Indications on the floor obviously have some limitations especially in crowded environments (when you can't see the floor!) but we can see some value in moving images to encourage crowd flow or in providing supporting messages to reassure people they are moving in the right direction.  We'd see it more in encouraging behaviour rather than being used in isolation to navigate.

In an outdoor environment there is a new paint finish that is being trialled in Cambridge that glows in the dark.  The inventors claim that it could be bright enough to do away with street lights.

If it works (we saw the path soon after installation and on that evening it wasn't as glowing as the images), we can see a wayfinding value in showing primary routes through a space.

Finally, there is the ever-present Google Street View now coming to an airport near you.  Street View has now mapped the interior of Gatwick Airport allowing passengers to tour the airport before they arrive.  The wayfinding value of this is pretty limited as the chances are we will have forgotten what we have seen by the time we arrive.  

How do we think about navigating? The link to wayfinding strategy...

At the core of a good wayfinding strategy is a good understanding of the various mental models users might hold of the space and how this will impact their navigation.

That mental model is often influenced by different representations of the place or space. The classic example is the London tube map which famously distorts the layout of London.  On the Gizmodo site, London has been redrawn to show how the tube map distorts it.

Despite locals knowing this, many visitors rely on the tube map to shape their understanding of how London is laid out.  This is OK as long as you rely on the underground to get around - it is positively unhelpful once you try to move around at surface level.  Hence the success of the Legible London scheme which again has designed its maps around how the pedestrian looks and thinks about the world around them...which way do I need to go (relative to where I am facing)? how long will it take? etc.  The success is reinforced by the number of cities, like New York, following the same approach.

On another example, we recently discovered Crowsflight which is a new navigation app.  We're yet to test it in anger but the idea is nice.  If I want to walk to somewhere in the city do I really need/want step-by-step directions or do I just want to know which direction to head in?

Navigating in this way might be simpler on our memory load (we don't have to remember the steps or keep referring to our phones) and be more enjoyable - we get to explore and maybe actually learn our way around.  We suspect it might be a bit harder for that final bit of the journey to locate the actual building or location you are going to but the concept of fitting with how we think about navigation is great.

All of these examples reflect looking at how we think about the environment and how we navigate.  Good strategy is built on developing this kind of thinking for the places we design.

The role of choice in influencing behaviour

In designing physical spaces like stations, airports, hospitals and stadia we are always interested in how we can get people to go where we want them to. We need them to know where they are going, to have their ticket ready, etc. But the fact is we know, as human factors experts, that it is difficult to stop people doing what they want to do.

So we were interested in this article looking at why apps designed to change behaviour failed to do so: http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/13/why-behavior-change-apps-fail-to-change-behavior/

Perhaps there are a number of challenges.  Clearly we need to avoid removing choice and pushing people in a certain direction.  We've all had wayfinding experiences where we "just want to get over there" but there is a barrier in the way.  We need to make use of existing behaviours rather than trying to impose new ones.  We need to really understand what people want and make sure we design to meet those needs ahead of the needs of the owner or operator - they will probably find their needs are met too!

Signage for me - personal navigation

A design firm in the US has produced a new signage product called Points which is connected to the internet and is a dynamic and flexible display.  It can take data from various sources including social media and then change the sign display and the direction it is pointing in response.

On the surface this seems like a bit of fun.  At the moment you can tweet the sign and shortly after your tweet appears and it will even point in the direction where you tweeted from.

However it got us thinking more about individualisation and personalisation of information. The value that we are all getting from pulling data on to our own mobile devices is that it is personalised to us and what we are doing.  Navigation information is about our route only; status updates on public transport concern only the trains or buses we are using; we can get restaurant recommendations for those that are near to our location; the list is prettty endless.

In contrast signage, by its static nature, has always been something different.  Pointing to known desinations that that majority are likely to want or points of interest determined by the local authority.

The concept of Points perhaps takes us a step closer to something in the environment that is more dynamic and responds to each of us as we approach the sign.  One could imagine having a route plugged into to Google Maps on our own device; near field technology allows the sign to detect that route and then adapts to show us the direction we want to be travelling in at that point.  There are probably a bunch of barriers to this such as how it would work in a crowded space like a railway concourse but let’s not worry to much about that for now.

Have a look.  Tweet the sign...we did...

But also think about where this could take us and what we want to support future wayfinding.