Negotiated Production: Wayfinding for Children's Hospitals

I researched into two Hospitals - Great Ormond Street Hospital and The Royal Children's Hospital (RCH) Melbourne – who redesigned their wayfinding system to better suit the need of children.

The Royal Children's Hospital (RCH) Melbourne

Up to 10,000 people visit this hospital every day and their wayfinding system (which started development in 2009 and was finalized in 2011) was built specifically with children in mind. It brings together six levels of clinical, research and education facilities in a wholly unique way.

During the research stage, the designers collaborated with child physiologists as well as over 600 children. Staff and patient surveys were also a key method used, as well as interviews and observation techniques so that they could better understand adult versus child wayfinding abilities. They also looked into designing for those with English as a second language.

One of their studies showed that the use of clinical terminology could be confusing and intimidating for children. Finn Butler, Wayfinding Direction for Büro North, explains that they moved “away from clinical terminology to make it a lot more accessible”. With this in mind, they introduced friendlier names for different sections of the hospital, linking these back to the artwork on the walls with names such as “Koala Ward” and “Possum Ward”.

Indeed, characterisation has been used to engage children to the hospital's signs. The wayfinding system created likens the hospital to the natural world. You start at the lower ground level, marked with the theme of “Underground” and travel right to the top floor, where the theme is “Sky”. Specific areas on each level relate to the theme. For example, “Koala Ward” exists on the “Tree Tops” level.

Further creative decisions are made throughout the hospital. The lift is symbolized with either an illustration of a beanstalk or slide, while colourful, quirky illustrations attract the eye from a distance.

The design company worked with illustrator Jane Reiseger to produce these illustrations. Reiseger says that her illustrations are “fairy intuitive”, which can be seen in her loose lines and a simplicity that is almost child-like. The illustrations had to also provide a calming distraction, which has been achieved especially through the use of colour. Colour has been effectively integrated into the building, taking a step away from the usual intimidating white walls of a medical location. The colours are bright enough to attract a child's attention, though they do not go overboard, for each level has its own colour scheme, which is linked to the name of their floor. For example, “Underwater” works with mainly blues and greens.

Overall, the wayfinding system successfully works in engaging children and making the Royal Children's Hospital a more calming and less intimidating place.

They also looked at environmental considerations when they built the design, seen in the video below:

Great Ormond Street Hospital

Great Ormond Street Hospital uses a very similar technique to the Royal Children's Hospital wayfinding system, developed by Landor Associates. For example, they have also created the lower floor to have the theme of “under the sea” and their top floor to have be “sky”. The ward on each floor is also named after an animal that is associated with the theme of that floor. These characters can help “guide” the patient or visitor to different parts of the hospital.

They have also created a colour identity, to be given to each of the hospital's six buildings, making navigation through various buildings much less confusing. "For me, it required a multi-storey car park level of simplicity of navigation," the design director at Landor Associates, Carl Halksworth, said, “but we couldn't stop there because when you understand the nature of the organisation, you don't want to just apply some big numbers and say that's what it's all about. We wanted to take the opportunity to really get into the culture of the hospital."

He goes on to explain, “It was an eye-opener when we started to talk to the team at GOSH about the way distraction / distraction therapy – is a key part of the therapeutic environment. The thinking is, if you’re going to give someone a big injection in their bottom, give them something to look at, get them to count the number of bees on the wall – it will make the situation better. So we wanted to look at how we could bring that distraction into our scheme and to make it more of an inviting and welcoming environment.”