03 – Industry Interviews

Our engagement with industry experts significantly influenced our wayfinding project, providing invaluable insights and shaping our subsequent steps. Our initial discussion with David Knight from DKCM proved enlightening, given his extensive work on a regional scale, closely collaborating with local authorities – a synergy with our project's objectives. David emphasized the utility of top-down maps in connecting people with their local environments. He suggested that when complemented with ground-level research, these maps could yield more meaningful representations. Independently, he referenced the Situationist International, particularly Guy Debord's work on the derive, opening up a rich avenue for exploration. Furthermore, he recommended exploring Legible London and studying differences between older and newer city areas as potential sources of inspiration.

An example of DKCM’s mapping work: an “economic portrait” of the Royal Docks area of East London (viewed on the DKCM website.)

Building on David's insights, we engaged with Alex at Applied Wayfinding, the London Studio behind Legible London. Alex underscored the significance of desktop research, especially concerning practical considerations such as navigating planning regulations. By emphasizing iterative design and studying contrasting areas like rural and urban landscapes, Alex highlighted the importance of a systematic working process for evaluating our project.

Expanding our discourse, we spoke with David Kopulos, a wayfinding designer at Steer in Canada. His immediate excitement about our project, aligning with his MRes work on gamifying urban wayfinding, offered valuable encouragement. Drawing relevance from Legible London, David stressed the significance of iterative design and the importance of allowing users to create their own tools. Notably, he emphasized the need for our project's self-sustainability, a critical aspect we had not fully considered.

The Greenwich Emotion Map, an example of a project combining top-down mapping with ground-level meaning. Available here.

An intriguing turn in our journey occurred during interviews with an urban planning designer for Tel Aviv and a director of various wayfinding projects. Their enthusiasm resonated with our evolving objective of targeting new London residents and establishing connections between locals and newcomers. However, we recognized that our initial project communication inadvertently conveyed the impression of an unnecessary operation. In the geo-political context, fostering community unity became paramount, aligning with our overarching mission of cultivating a sense of belonging in unfamiliar places. As an example, it was suggested that we explore some of the early to mid 2000s wayfinding/explorative projects as a way to take inspiration from their way of communicating to their audiences. One of these examples was the Cool Cousin project, an app that generated locals' recommendations of places to visit to tourists (Fig 3.)

(Fig.3). Image taken from Google images relating to https://www.coolcousin.com/

The interviewees, while enthusiastic about the project, indicated the necessity of clearly defining our target audience. By this point, we had decided to focus on new London residents, aiming to bridge the gap between locals and newcomers. However, the way we communicate the project suggested an operation that shouldn't be there. Particularly considering the geo-political context, it became even more critical to unite communities rather than create arbitrary divisions that hinder a user's experience of developing a sense of belonging in an unfamiliar place. This highlighted the need to carefully consider our project's narrative, ensuring it aligns with the mission of community strengthening rather than inadvertently fostering unnecessary separations.