Wayfinding: A simple concept, a complex process

Anna Charisse Farr, Tristan Kleinschmidt, Prasad Yarlagadda and Kerrie Mengersen

Transport Reviews, 2012, vol. 32, issue 6, 715-743

Abstract: Wayfinding is the process of finding your way to a destination in a familiar or unfamiliar setting using any cues given by the environment. Due to its ubiquity in everyday life, wayfinding appears on the surface to be a simply characterized and understood process; however, this very ubiquity and the resulting need to refine and optimize wayfinding has led to a great number of studies that have revealed that it is in fact a deeply complex exercise. In this article, we examine the motivations for investigating wayfinding, with particular attention being paid to the unique challenges faced in transportation hubs, and discuss the associated principles and factors involved as they have been perceived from different research perspectives. We also review the approaches used to date in the modelling of wayfinding in various contexts. We attempt to draw together the different perspectives applied to wayfinding and postulate the importance of wayfinding and the need to understand this seemingly simple, but concurrently complex, process.

Date: 2012
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01441647.2012.712555 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:transr:v:32:y:2012:i:6:p:715-743

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/TTRV20

DOI: 10.1080/01441647.2012.712555

Access Statistics for this article

Transport Reviews is currently edited by Professor David Banister and Moshe Givoni

More articles in Transport Reviews from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().