Social wayshowing

Design research

This report documents the development of social wayshowing, a new concept for urban pedestrian navigation.

Positioned as complementary to existing, government-initiated wayshowing systems of directional signs and maps, this new process-based approach is evaluated in relation to the emerging concepts of collaborative production and gamification.

A review of relevant literature and existing practice explores these concepts as both research methodologies and design approaches in the context of wayshowing. The results of this review informed an iterative series of action research activities designed to test the social wayshowing concept. For the first such activity, participants were invited to find specific destinations in an indoor setting and to make use of pre-made signs to direct others. A post-activity analysis of the signs' locations revealed distinct styles of wayshowing and the degree to which participants relied on each other's efforts to develop a cohesive wayshowing network.

These findings were incorporated into the design of the subsequent research activity, which took place on the streets of London's Tower Hill area, a bustling financial and tourist district. Two teams of participants designed and installed signs to destinations they deemed noteworthy, after which they competed to follow the opposing team's signs to their intended destinations. Captured by the participants using cameras and audio recorders and analysed according to the constructivist principles of social semiotics and geosemiotics, the data generated by this game-based activity revealed the participants' close consideration of semiotic vocabulary in anticipation of how it would be reconstructed by those who followed.

Strengths and weaknesses of the game-based motivational approach were also revealed, which served to indicate directions for further iterations of social wayshowing. These and other results will be assembled into a methodological toolbox, intended to equip professional designers when initiating future social wayshowing projects.