Why digital wayfinding solutions have become essential to the everyday lives of so many people.
If you are a frequent flyer, you have experienced delays and flight cancellations numerous times. Once faced with a disruption, you have certainly wished you could take an active role in planning your new itinerary, ideally without having to stand in a long line of disgruntled passengers. In August 2018, Lufthansa announced plans to let you to just that, lending passengers unprecedented freedom to self-manage their disrupted air travel. This is just one example of many digital wayfinding solutions that are taking the world of customised personal mobility by storm. As attractive as flight self-management sounds, however, the technology’s ground applications are much more exciting and far-reaching.
How often have you been lost?
Back in 2014, the Daily Mail reported that British tourists wasted a staggering total of 22 million hours lost while on holiday. According to the report, the reason for that was Britons would often leave their smartphones at the hotel. Nowadays, it is hard to imagine going anywhere without your mobile, but even so, how easy is it to get to where you want to be?
Sure, there are the famous laminated maps on the sides of tourist information points. A huge red spot informs you that ‘YOU ARE HERE’, but there is little beyond that to help you find your way, let alone design the most exciting and desirable path. Surely, there must be a better way! Enter digital wayfinding.
Increasingly, static maps nowadays deliver neither objective results nor subjective customer satisfaction. Today’s public is screen-adjusted, digitally savvy, and in love with customisation. The old challenge of simply not getting lost has made way for the bigger task of providing a tailor-made navigation solution, an experience that demonstrates both competence and care. This is what digital wayfinding solutions are about. Installed by city councils and private businesses alike, they allow visitors to orient themselves in a physical space through cutting-edge digital tools, and they provide the necessary information for an individual, custom route that is efficient, informative, and exciting all at once.
Applying digital wayfinding solutions in the field
Digital wayfinding has been growing in use slowly but steadily over the years. Laminated print maps first gave way to static screens; screens were then connected to keyboards, mousepads and joysticks to allow for a degree of interactivity; and finally, touch screen technology developed enough to enter the public space and start guiding visitors through buildings, museums and cities alike. The unifying principles behind various digital wayfinding systems are the sense of freedom and the breadth of additional information that is at the user’s finger tips – quite literally! Interactive guided tours, route planners, scalable building floor plans and annotated area maps are just a few popular versions of the general concept. Thanks to technological advancement in both navigation and imaging, digital wayfinding is only growing stronger and more popular.
Digital signage: self-service kiosks and mobile apps – finding your own digital way
There are numerous interfaces for the successful deployment of effective digital wayfinding solutions. Digital signage is the overarching concept here, and it encompasses the art and science of displaying a customer’s desired route in an accessible and exciting manner. The go-to solution used to come in the form of a self-service kiosk, equipped with a large touch screen and a backend loaded with customisable information, ready to be called up by the curious user.
However, digital signage has increasingly been migrating into the app world. With the massive proliferation of mobile devices, people have grown ever more accustomed to looking for information on their smartphones or tablets and making them an essential part of their movement through the offline world. This, in turn, presents an excellent opportunity for you to design and deliver a mobile digital wayfinding product that speaks to your own information and customer-relations purposes while providing top-notch service to your visitors.
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LamasaTech lives and breathes customised digital experiences, and our tailor-made digital solutions will meet any and all your wayfinding needs. Get in touch and let us find our path to success together!
