Ideation and Evaluation
Ideation and Evaluation
Following our user research and key takeaways, we dived into ideation and prototyping. We started with brainstorming, solution evaluation, before moving into iterating and creating physical prototypes for our solutions.
Create a large sign outside the building specifying the building number (1701), building name (UW IHDD), and individual clinics that are easy to spot via car or on foot.
Implement navigational spray-painted footsteps from the S1 parking lot to the main waiting room of the CHDD.
Develop internal signage through a three-pronged approach aimed to improve visitors’ abilities to self-navigate:
Redesign the building directory to be more readable and helpful for visitors
Have guidance inside of the building leading to the restrooms and waiting areas through navigational characters,
Create clear and visible restroom signage that indicates accessibility and accommodations (wheelchair accessible, changing station, family-friendly, gender-neutral or not) that is standardized across all three floors.
We created low and high-fidelity prototypes of our potential solutions to review them with our sponsor.
With our first iteration of high-fidelity prototypes, we evaluated our designs with the following criteria with our sponsor and the UW IHDD building administrator:
Is the design something patients will actually use?
Does the design improve the navigational and overall user experience of patients visiting the IHDD?
Is the design within budget for the UW IHDD and our capstone team?
Is the design usable long term or will it need to be adjusted regularly to match changes with the clinic?
Do we have the capability and jurisdiction to physically implement these designs?
Do we have access to the technology to make these designs a reality with a professional look?
We found that a lot of our design solutions would fall out of scope of our project due to jurisdiction and time constraints. Our final deliverables would need to focus solely on improving the wayfinding experience for the interior of the IHDD building.
After evaluating the feasibility of our external signage and navigational foodprints, the administration staff at the UW IHDD made us aware that they have no jurisdiction over anything on the outside of the building. Signs outside the building are within the jurisdiction of the UW Architecture Department, anything on the grass or shrubbery is within the jurisdiction of the UW Grounds, and anything on or blocking the sidewalk could be an accessibility violation that must be addressed with the City of Seattle.
While we could contact all stakeholders to garner approval, this would take significantly longer than our project timeline, thus we determined that any designs outside the building will not be physically prototyped.
When evaluating the viability of our internal signage and directory, it became apparent that since clinics operate on different days, in different rooms and floors, it is not possible to develop a directory that is viable for long-term usage. Additionally, since the IHDD building and surrounding buildings are constantly under construction, clinics temporarily move between buildings.
Furthermore, there are clinics that require check-in at the second-floor check-in desk in the IHDD even when the physical clinic is housed in a separate building--such as the Adult Autism clinic. Thus, while a list of clinics is still helpful for patients to know they are in the right place it is not sustainable long-term to create a list of what rooms or floors those clinics are housed in.
Moreover, we found that some ‘clinics’ under the clinic bracket on the website are no longer in use and thus can be removed from the list of current clinics.
As the CHDD becomes the IHDD and senior leadership changes, the IHDD hopes to create a strong, friendly, brand image. Thus, when evaluating the feasibility and desirability of the internal signage we were told that the IHDD hopes to pivot from research-centric signage and replace the directory with IHDD friendly branding.
As the IHDD houses many clinics, they hope to maintain a strong cohesive brand image among all clinics. Because of this, they are in strong favor of a mascot character or universal navigational character, as we suggested.
A final issue the IHDD administration brought to our attention is that the bathroom signage in the building is not comprehensive. Some restrooms that are meant to be accessible, gender neutral, and family restrooms all in one, however, current signage is unclear which restrooms are gendered and what other functionality they have. We have also come to learn that they are not actually ADA accessible as they were built before those regulations were introduced.
In addition, there is no signage indicating that restrooms contain baby changing stations which is imperative for a clinic space that serves children and families.
With our findings from our design evaluations, we synthesized new design recommendations to continue iterating and improving upon.
Improving the internal signage within the IHDD will be most beneficial to first-time patients and visitors at the IHDD. This is an area we can create the most positive change. More specifically, we refocused our efforts to improving wayfinding on the first-floor as this was the area where most visitors get lost while navigating to the check-in desk.
Using our initial prototypes, we aim to modify the directory and create our wayfinding assistant, Starling, to create a wayfinding system that is intuitive to native English speakers and ESL visitors. We will create two unique posters that act as directories and wayfinding signs, which will also instruct visitors to follow Starling to the check-in desk. We will then put Starling signs on the walls in strategic locations so that visitors are always able to see the next Starling they are meant to go to.
During our evaluation with our sponsors, we found that Hartman was not a viable mascot because of the strong association with Cardiology. Instead, we are pivoting to just using Starling as our mascot, and defining Starling’s clear purpose as helping visitors get from the first floor to the second-floor check-in desk.
Another internal signage issue we found during our use research and sponsor evaluation was that the bathroom signage in the IHDD needs to be updated. We aim to do so by creating themed bathroom signage per floor in the IHDD, covering the first through third floors. Each floor has two single-person bathrooms which are gender-neutral, one women’s bathroom and one men’s bathroom.
Not only will these redesigned signs aid in providing brief and concise information about each respective restroom, they will be family-friendly in aesthetics and easy to identify so that visitors can quickly recognize and reference the signs.