Wayfinding is emotional
Unlike many public environments, hospitals often come with an emotional load. Stress, uncertainty and time pressure influence how people interpret information and make decisions, often before they even enter the building.
Vita explains that people are navigating healthcare from an already heightened emotional state, which fundamentally changes behaviour.
More information is not always better
One finding that came through clearly in the research is that information overload can actively work against successful navigation.
Patients and visitors rarely ignore information entirely. Instead, they often attempt to absorb everything from signs, posters and temporary messages. This then leads to skim reading, assumptions and wrong turns.
In hospital environments, clarity matters more than quantity.
We do not navigate the way we think we do
Using eye-tracking technology, Vita uncovered something particularly revealing: that people often behaved differently to how they believed they behaved.
Participants who claimed to ignore signage were frequently shown to be looking directly at it. Others became confused when they were trying to "behave correctly" during research tasks.
This goes to show that designing effective wayfinding means having a deep understanding of real user behaviour, not idealised behaviour.
Hospital wayfinding is never finished
Hospitals are constantly evolving. Departments move. Clinics relocate. Entrances change. Buildings expand.
This means wayfinding systems require ownership. There needs to be continuous testing, updating and maintenance to ensure their longevity. Vita explains that wayfinding should be treated less like a one-off project, and more like "a garden that keeps growing and needs trimming and weeding."
The future of hospital wayfinding
The episode also explores the role that digital tools could play in healthcare navigation, from dynamically updated signage systems to augmented reality and personalised navigation support.
One of the most important takeaways is a simple one:
Better wayfinding does not just mean better signs. It means designing systems around how people actually behave.
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