Way-Finding and Signposting: Penance or Prosthesis?

A 70 year old woman up from the country spent three days trying to get out of a
hypermarket in Utrecht. She told police who rescued her she was afraid to ask
other shoppers how to get out (Glasgow Herald, April 1979).
All form of public information and direction finding systems, whether they are
maps, signposts, guides, display boards or whatever, exist within the context of the
human use of the built or natural environment. The use and purpose of these
communication systems is therefore of interest to people, from a variety of
disciplines, who also have a concern for the human use of the physical
environment, human geographers, architects, planners and environmental
psychologists. Furthermore, in order to understand fully the psychological
significance of signposting and the like, and thus be able to produce systems which
can be more effectively utilised, it is necessary to understand the relevance of the
normal use of the physical surroundings. This chapter summarises some of the
research into the ways people navigate within, and make sense of, their physical
surroundings, of such relevance to the creation and study of public information and
direction-finding systems.