Our Central Branch is a four-floor building with rich collections and activities. It has extended wings and concrete pillars that create sightline barriers. The only wayfinding signs were unnoticeable small yellow signs at the entrance of the washrooms.

We used to get wayfinding questions 5-20 times a day per frontline staff member, such as “Where is the washroom?” and “Where’s holds?”. Customers were lost, so staff spent lots of time walking customers to their destinations, as it was challenging to point to the destination with the sightline blockers.

Improving the branch’s wayfinding was essential to:

• Provide customers a smoother experience navigating our service areas
• Support customers' need for independence during their visit
• Increase customer awareness of our services on different floors
• Allow frontline staff to provide services to more customers by offloading the wayfinding task to signs
• Make it easy for frontline staff to help customers with wayfinding with visual support

The goal was to create an effective wayfinding system for our Central Branch. We adopted a lean approach (test and iterate often) and co-designed with staff and customers. We prioritized icons for accessibility, as many customers are kids and English learners.

Key partners:

• Departments: Strategy & Service Innovation, Marketing, Branch Experience
• Frontline Staff
• Customers

Activities:

• Understand: Surveyed staff and customers on service area findability
• Design and Research: Using user experience and wayfinding design principles, we conducted 3 rounds of paper prototype design - install - test - iteration
• Develop: As the content and accessibility are tested, we are producing high-fidelity prototypes (colors and materials) to test again

Uniqueness:

• An in-house team of an architect designer, a design researcher, and a service design librarian
• Co-designed with staff and customers

Innovation:

• Broadened the role of the librarian
• Case study of co-design with customers and staff

Success is measured by:

• Staff count of wayfinding questions pre- and post-innovation
• Customer success rate of finding service areas during the prototype testing
• Customer and frontline staff self-reported experience

The outcome is 3-fold:

• Frontline staff
  • Wayfinding questions dropped from 5-20 times per day per staff member to 0-2 times
  • Improved efficiency when they help with wayfinding questions due to the supporting signs
• Customers:
  • Decreased wayfinding confusions
  • Improved in-branch experience
  • Increased awareness of in-branch services
• 1st floor Coffee shop owner
  • “Finally nobody asks me where the washroom is! I used to get this question at least 3 times a day.”

Through this innovation, we’ve developed new partnerships with customers (as co-design partners) and the coffee shop. We’ve also created a foundation for a deeper level of collaboration between internal departments and this innovation is a positive example.