iBeacons helping the visually impaired to navigate

In an earlier blog we talked about some of the uses of iBeacon technology.  In this piece from the BBC, TfL are trialling their use in combination with a smartphone app to provide accurate walking instructions to the visually impaired.

View the video > http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-31757593

When we did our research work for Guide Dogs for the Blind a couple of years ago, this kind of application was clearly something that would be of value in supporting wayfinding and travel.  It's only now as this technology for accurate indoor location finding becomes more available that such apps can be developed and put into action.

iBeacons - should we be pushing or pulling content?

iBeacons are causing quite a stir at the moment with a flurry of major companies, including airlines, retail giants and arts venues running trials and pilot schemes trying to work out how they can be employed, the benefits they may bring and how consumers react to the geo-position enabled devices.

The key battleground, as we see it, is the contest between enabling customers to pull context-relevant information when they want it vs. companies using the technology to push information.  The push model seems to have the negative potential to become intrusive and marketing led.

iBeacons are small, low cost, location transmitting devices, that can be installed in fixed locations within the built environment to talk to smartphones via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). They have the advantage over GPS in that they work inside and therefore can enable smartphone apps to trigger personalised messages and bespoke content to users when they come within close proximity to the beacons. In essence, the beacons provide the user with location sensitive information/content that has not before been possible within buildings. It also enables the provider to monitor where people are – for example, as shopper walks into a store or a passenger nears a check-in area.

Recently Tesco and Waitrose have both been running pilot schemes at single store locations with an expressed aim to boost customer shopping experience. Waitrose have developed an in-store mode to its app which, via the beacons, enables users to receive in-store offers as they approach particular aisles or food counters, read product reviews and add and collect items in a virtual shopping basket.

In another camp, Tescos are playing it more cautiously. Their trial is initially being used to deliver pop-up reminders to customers to pick up pre-ordered items as they walk into the store. Tesco have said they will be holding off pushing promotions, for the time being, over fears it could scare customers away from using the app if they are bombarded with messages.

Meanwhile in France, supermarket giant Carrefour have jumped in with both feet in its flagship Paris store, installing 200 beacons, which automatically open the Carrefour app upon entering the store then enable shoppers to be guided around the store in the most efficient manner to collect items from their personal shopping lists and/or recipe ingredients they have selected on their app at home. Their intention is to soon send geo-push coupons and offers to shoppers’ phones based on their location in-store and buying profile.

Over in the arts sector, the power of iBeacon-enabled apps is set to revolutionise the visitor experience within museums, galleries and exhibitions. Location sensitive content pushed to visitor smartphones and tablets as they approach exhibits has the potential to unearth a fresh new layer of rich and interesting information to support and entertain the visitor as they wander around the museum/gallery. Current thinking has proposed concepts such as:

• Provide additional information about an exhibit to bring it to life. For example a video or sound clip describing the details, inspiration and interesting anecdotes about a painting. 
• Augmented reality allowing the viewer to look back in time at the interior of a room via their smart phone screen. 
• Present information in a large range of languages rather than the sometimes limited set on printed information. 
• Provide suggestions of other artwork or pieces within the gallery based on items the viewer ‘likes’. 
• Provision of contextual info which automatically pops up as the viewer walks past a painting/exhibit making interaction effortless. The viewer chooses whether to engage with the pop up…. or not. 
• Provide dynamic routing around large exhibits and communicate proximity to facilities. 

Airports are busy transport hubs, with high passenger numbers who all have to abide by a set process and schedule. The airport also has a multitude of facilities, from retail, to dining to leisure. Within this dynamic and inherently multi-cultural environment there are opportunities for the application of technology and iBeacons to simplify or enhance the journey. SITA have recently published their research findings on the use of iBeacons in airports.  This includes automating the push of boarding info, automatically bringing passenger boarding card onto the smartphone homescreen when nearing checkpoints and advising passengers of the “rules” (e.g. remove liquids and laptops from your hand baggage) and informing arriving passengers of baggage timings and reclaim belt details.

Easyjet are also trialling iBeacons at three of their key airports allowing users of the Easyjet app to receive updates and personal info at key touchpoints. These include where to drop off oversize luggage, and personalising live boarding gate info to save passengers having to stare at departure screens. Virgin Atlantic are also on board with an iBeacon trial but appear to be pushing the envelope further with push notifications sent to passengers informing them of partner company promotions such as a currency exchange offer as they pass the TravelEx. They are also aiming to push notifications to passengers in the Virgin Club lounge when slots in the Club spa become available.

All of these trials and ideas show that there are different views and a very careful line to tread here between engagement and bombardment. So, are iBeacons the future of customer experience?

They certainly seem to offer an interesting opportunity to engage and communicate important useful information to users and to aide supporting navigation around indoor spaces. In the arts sector they can unlock whole new channels of information and entertainment. Most powerfully is what they can do in the provision of accessibility information and aiding navigation and travel information for hearing or sight impaired travellers.

However, there are clear concerns that the usefulness could easily be eroded by overzealous use for pushed marketing notifications.

We are interested in identifying positive applications where it can really make a difference to the users experience or interaction with a place. Our initial guidance on how iBeacon features should be utilised is that:

• Features which enrich the users experience or make it easier and reduce time queuing are positive and should be developed further. 
• Pop up notifications should be used sparingly and where companies believe they can deliver useful, usable content to the user.  The user needs to remain in control of what they receive
• Language selection inline with the users smartphone could really aide international travellers who may sometimes struggle in foreign buildings. 
• Geo-position targeted messages should not be use as a mass marketing tool. If it begins to feel like location targeted spam users will soon switch off and disconnect. 
• Automatic pop up of a feature that the user needs to use - such as a boarding pass is good, automatic pop ups of adverts is not. 
• Use of digital content should be seen as supplementing physical signage and displays within the building, NOT replacing. Physical signage communicates to all, not just those with smart phones and selected apps. 
• iBeacon features have the potential to deliver accessibility information to passengers/users with hearing or sight impairments to help them navigate and access travel information. We see this as a genuinely powerful and positive use of the technology. 

Behaviour in crowds and paying attention

Part of what influences our experience of places like airports is how those around us behave.

Of course it's not always positive as far as our own perception goes - a recent piece on-line highlighted the 12 most annoying things other passengers do - http://goo.gl/rRIi6v 

We've probably all experienced most of these (and been guilty of some of them too!).  However we've pointed the link to the one about lack of attention as it tied in with another story we read about the influence of smartphones on people movement.

This article on the BBC website, talked about the growth in smartphone usage in Japan and how it is starting to impact on how, in a busy and congested environment, people navigate around each other. Cultural and social norms in Japan meant this has always worked effectively...until now as the smartphone draws attention away from the surroundings - the emergence of "dumbwalking"

There are lots of companies and operators starting to advocate the use smartphones for things like wayfinding and navigation. This experience suggests this might not be great unless we want more zombie-like people wandering the airports not paying attention!

Update: 15 September 2014
So now a Chinese city has created a special lane for phone users (perhaps not totally seriously!).  It's perhaps not the answer!  But it might be worth watching how people use it.  It certainly is a good reminder of the growing problem of distraction as people walk around our cities.

Human Behaviour and Innovation

There was a great feature published on the Design Council website recently about the potential for behavioural design to join up research and practice and to be used to have real impact on a range of social issues.

It recognised that many of the issues faced are governed by human behaviour.  Therefore understanding that behaviour better must be key to finding solutions.  In particular linking behavioural understanding with design thinking could provide new insights and new ideas.

We recommend you have a read...http://bit.ly/1lI9Gg7

We identified a number of key messages for our work. The first being the importance of understanding real people's needs. The critical factor being in understanding the range of needs of our users. To provide structure in a design process, the temptation is to simplify this and use crude stereotypes or user groups.  These have their place but are often not rich enough to see the variety and can therefore design out the needs of lots of people.

The other key point for us is in understanding how people make decisions. For lots of our work, in particular around wayfinding and navigation, it is critical that we understand the different ways in which people make decisions at points in their journey.  Without this understanding how we can hope to influence them with information, signage, guidance, etc.

Is the ticket dead?

The news that London Underground are to close ticket offices (www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-25025888) is set to change the nature of the "ticket" and the interaction between operator and customer.

The days of the little bit of paper clutched in our hands are clearly numbered.  Tickets moving onto our smart mobile devices creates a range of opportunities to enhance the passenger experience by offering a more joined-up, journey-orientated service.

With a ticket on a smartphone, the operator knows who you are.  This could be an enabler for more personalised and individual services.  Preferences, likes & dislikes can all be remembered and bookings and offers tailored accordingly.

The operator might also know where you are.  This might allow individual travel information to be pushed to you as you enter the station - "Welcome to King's Cross, your 12.43 train to York is running 5 minutes late and will be ready for boarding in 10 minutes from Platform 6".

Knowing where you are could help eliminate the current advance booking of seats that sit empty for the journey.  The system would only allocate the seat as you enter the station.  This could also provide more flexibility for you to change seats or even change which train you are going to get.  This could be the end of the ticket barrier too - no need to go through a gate as the "station" knows that everyone on the platform is a valid ticket holder.  No more ticket inspections?  Wouldn't that be nice.

This kind of consist information could be really useful to train operators who currently have no idea who is on their train.  It can help with ensuring passengers are spread through the train and enable a range of new personalised services to be offered on-board.

The removal of the ticket office could change the nature of the interaction between passenger and staff.  The current mode is very "over the counter" and is transactional in nature.  Removing the physical separation might allow more of a personal concierge-style service to be provided which is of more value to passengers.

The only loss is the old romance of that collectable bit of paper.  But that probably disappeared long ago anyway.

Let's hope that as this technology becomes more widespread, operators take the opportunity to provide genuinely better services to passengers and do more than get rid of some staff, sell us a ticket and push loads of advertising to our phones.

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.  

Share your poor wayfinding experiences with us

When spaces like airports are well laid out and we are helped at every turn by things like useful and informative signage we hardly notice it.  When we are let down, for example, the signs suddenly stop mentioning where we want to go at a critical decision point, we feel annoyed, stressed, etc.

Our work as designers obviously aims to provide the best experience possible and we want to eradicate wayfinding woes.  But we’re always interested in those poor experiences to see what we can learn and how we can use those lessons to convince others of the need to get it right.

So if you have had a memorably poor wayfinding experience on any given journey, we’d like to hear from you.  Please comment on this blog to add your thoughts and experiences.

Whether you’ve been visiting a hospital, your journey to work, finding your way around a commercial building or outdoor space, shopping centre or anywhere, please let us know your experience in as much detail as you like.

To get us started, one of our principal consultants found himself in an embarrassing situation recently due to the rather overly “designed” symbols on the toilet doors of a London pub!

The power of the crowd in wayfinding

In developing wayfinding strategy, we invest time in understanding individual users of a space and what their mental model might be and what their own particular motivations and goals could be. This interesting article reminded us not to forget the power of crowds on how people navigate an environment.

We look a lot in wayfinding at decision points and how individuals make their decisions at these locations.  But how are they influenced by the crowd around them? Is the decision made differently if they are largely alone in the space as opposed to when there are strong flows of people moving past them?  If so, how would we respond?  Do we have to give greater saliency to signage at this point? Or can we use the flow to support intuitive wayfinding? How might our desire to be "part of the crowd" force us to make wayfinding errors as we are the only one going that way?  Wow, lots of questions!

The article also points maybe to how we get feedback on wayfinding schemes.  Is it better to ask how they think other people might find the navigation rather than how did you find it?  Would this get a better answer?

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.

The reality of wayfinding in railway stations

Nice little blog that sums up the wayfinding experience of many in stations and how then the customer service has to rescue the situation (or sometimes fails to do so).  Most wayfinding mistakes result in annoyance or stress...but others have more significant consequences

http://wendyhome.com/2013/04/18/4-hour-detour/

Impact of digital mapping on wayfinding

An interesting article in the New Scientist recently highlighted some of the emerging trends in digital mapping and how our experience of navigating spaces and environments is changing. 

What does this mean for traditional methods of providing navigational information?

The way in which we find our way is changing.  The coverage of mapping information from Google, Apple, Bing and others is getting increasingly comprehensive.  The more recent move to mapping internal spaces is also growing – Google now has the annotated floor plans of over 10,000 buildings.

The real change with this mapping technology is that the way is accessed, usually via GPS and a smartphone, places you at the centre of the map and can often orientate the map to show you which way you are facing.

The question for traditional designers of wayfinding signage is whether this is a competing technology or a complementary approach to help us find our way.

Digital mapping offers many opportunities.  Augmented reality technology can be used to show the location of the destination (i.e. the entrance to a specific building) or points of interest along the way.  Other data can be drawn into show imminent weather or perhaps crime spots that should be avoided (with its own potentially negative impact).

However it is clear that there are a number of issues with an increasing reliance on digital mapping technology.  Research has shown that the limited view that we get on a screen narrows our field of view so whilst we can follow the directions we never effectively develop a mental model of where we are.  This increases our reliance on the technology as we don’t really learn the route – a problem when you leave your phone at home!

This lack of understanding where we are highlights one of the other main issues with the current technology…and that is trust.  The recent debacle for Apple has undermined the trust of many users.  When seen alongside the various tales of woe of people following their satnavs and getting into trouble.   It is clear that the technology still has some way to go!

We are also recognizing that the mapping technology is owned by large multinationals with their own agendas – for example, perhaps they are more likely to identify points of interest with whom they have a commercial interest than those of genuine interest to us.

Digital mapping will only increase and the technology will improve rapidly including how that information is provided.  Research has shown that people referring to their phones walk more slowly, actually walk longer distances and were worse at orientation than those using a paper map. So for success maybe the future is more integrated technology like Google Glass.  At the moment, it feels like reliance on mapping technology makes us less likely to absorb our surroundings, be less inquisitive and adventurous – a less interesting way of getting around.

But the need for us to consider the built environment independent of the technology will also not go away – the technology will always have shortcomings and we have to cater for those who can’t or don’t use the technology (inclusive design?). 

The challenge is how can we provide wayfinding using a range of methods and how can we harness all of these to help people get the mental model of how a space is laid out and how they can navigate without reliance on any one method.

Future Technology for Blind & Visually Impaired People

This is a video from Guide Dogs for the Blind about the future use of technology to help the blind & visually impaired.

The work we are doing with them on travel & wayfinding needs will inform more work in this area.

Railway stations as a destination

At the recent Railway Terminal Conference in Vienna, the focus was on what can railway stations learn from airports and how can the passenger experience be enhanced?  It is clear that railway stations, at least the mainline stations, have come a long way from being the dirty, unattractive places of years ago.  With the opening of St Pancras International and the new King's Cross concourse in London, the integration of iconic architecture and historic buildings are providing wonderful spaces to start or end journeys.

But many of the speakers at the conference suggested that the next step was to make railway stations a destination in their own right rather than just part of a journey.  Making them more meaningful in terms of their place in the city - something that airports can't achieve.  The intent is to bring more people into the station who actually don't get on a train.

But there was little insight into how this improved the passenger experience.  Making stations a "destination" seems to translate into different and varied "commercial offers" - i.e. shopping.  Whether its eating and drinking or buying stuff, this seems to be what the operators want (you can see the financial rationale!).

What this seems to fail to acknowledge is that this adds little value to the travelling passenger.  In fact the risk of all these shoppers and retail outlets cluttering up the stations seems to be significant.

What was totally absent from the discussion, was how you enhance the door to door experience of the railway passenger.  Not much has changed in this area other than being able to buy tickets in advance on-line.

Where is the innovation?  Next door at the airport Passenger Terminal Expo, everything was about changing the experience of for the passenger.  Sure there was plenty about retail but loads more about self-service check-in, bag drop,  security, boarding etc.  In other words doing things differently.

So what can the railway industry do to enhance the passenger experience other than designing majestic stations?

Improving the security experience at Gatwick?

We hear that Gatwick is planning to significantly enhance the passenger experience when it opens its new South Terminal.

New technology is coming including automated barcode scanners replacing boarding-pass checkers.  We understand that the new security lounge will use state of the art crowd-measuring technology to identify the shortest queue. According to the Time to Wander blog, the airport said “we’re going to use colour-coded lighting.  A queue with a waiting time of a minute or less will be one colour, and we’ll use others for two, three and four minutes. And we’re getting rid of the queueing system we inherited from BAA. You’ll come into the hall, join the shortest queue, and if it slows down, you can go and join another. We’re trying to do things differently.”

There are plans to have 19 colour-coded lanes in place when the new South Terminal fully opens in August, one of which will be reserved for families and those requiring special assistance.

Great to see airports starting to compete to offer a better experience than others. 

These sound like some interesting ideas to help passengers.  The colour-coded lighting might be a really good way to help people understand the dynamics of the various queues that face them - we will wait to see if it works.  It could see a better distribution of people and a positive sense of choice for the passenger.  It'll be really interesting to see if firstly passengers understand the coding and then how responsive the system is to the dynamic changes in queue.

We certainly applaud the shift to allowing passengers some sense of freedom rather than current stressful more controlling approach.  Being able to change lanes seems interesting but will you see a chaotic movement of people when their lane changes colour!  We shall see...

Designing better map interfaces

Many systems, especially those in control rooms such as mobilisation for the emergency services, use maps as a key part of the user interface.  However getting the usability of these maps is not always simple.

There are many different aspects to get right - the normal 'point & click' interface doesn't make navigation easy - the combination of dragging, centering and zooming can be cumbersome.

But also getting the map itself to be readable, given the potential volume of information, can be complex.  The most successful approach to this is through layering of information and Google Maps has used a number of methods that have cracked some of the problems.

For city labels, Google gives each label a white background eliminating the map detail behind the label.  It also uses more classes or types of label than other mapping systems.  Google also uses a lighter shade for the labels of the lower classes.  These all combine to make the labels on Google Maps very readable and reduce the apperance of visual clutter.

Google Maps also applies some decluttering tricks around the major urban areas and seemingly around the spacing of cities.

To see visual demonstration of these methods from Google, head to www.41latitude.com/post/2072504768/google-maps-label-readability

So some interesting lessons about clutter for designers of all maps.

Anyone seen any other good examples?

Wayfinding is more than signage - using other visual clues

Wayfinding around complex buildings and spaces is a difficult task.  The main tactic is usually static signage.  However this has problems in the volume of information that can be presented and more importantly absorbed and understood by the user.  To deal with this we are seeing more interesting ways to convey wayfinding information - here are some examples that we've come across recently

Firstly, is Wayfinder Wallpaper created by Mike&Maaike for rollout.  An essentially decorative finish that attempts to embed wayfinding information in the visual.

The second example is the design for the Eureka Tower Car Park in Melbourne by Axel Peemoeller.   This uses distorted lettering on the walls which when viewed from the right angle give a strong message. 

Finally, a signage and wayfinding approach from Ralston & Bau for the Storehagen Atrim in Norway.  This borrows heavily from railway/metro maps and signage to provide wayfinding in an office building.  This provides a common visual linkage throughout the building. 

So there many other visual ways in which users can be helped to navigate spaces and these can integrate well into the interior design.  We can't be sure how well any of these examples or other similar designs work but we found them thought-provoking  in at least thinking of other ways to help people make sense of a space.

Legible London delivers user focused design

Walking around London is being transformed by a wonderful piece of user-focused design (from Applied Information Group).  The two features of Legible London that really work for us are firstly the orientation of the maps to the direction you are facing.  This is different from the traditional orientation of having north at the top but makes so much more sense when walking.

The second element that seems to work so well for users is the indication of "time to walk".  Time is the scale of the map not distance which reflects what the user actually needs to know.

The comparison with the map in a bus stop near our office with none of these features was stark - in fact on that map you couldn't even tell where you were!

It's the small details that count as well in good station design

To work, stations must provide key elements such as a layout that allows passenger flow and facilities to an appropriate standard.  However, to deliver passenger satisfaction it is also the small details that count. 

King’s Cross Station is currently being redeveloped and CCD are involved in providing the human factors support to the programme.  When going to the King's Cross project offices on site we have to walk past Platform 9¾ as made famous by the Harry Potter series of stories and films.  Fans of the series will know that Platform 9¾ at King's Cross is the point where Harry Potter and his friends can board the Hogwart’s Express to attend Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizadry.

While the series and platform are fictional, a real life sign and trolley has been installed in the station close to the entrance to the real Platform 9.

Providing this, and ensuring that it remains in place during the development (it has been moved and there are signs directing visitors to its new location), is a small detail but one which will enhance the use of King's Cross for thousands of tourists and visitors to the station.  

Stand near it for any length of time and you'll see just how many fans come to have their photograph taken as they too run through the wall.