The summer doesn’t just bring us warm weather and beach days; it also offers a unique window of opportunity for auditing wayfinding systems on educational campuses.
With students, faculty, and a majority of the daily hustle on pause, campuses become more accessible for observation, evaluation, and the assessment to understand the opportunity for improvement. This downtime allows design teams to move freely through hallways, pathways, are entry/exit points without disrupting regular school operations. This helps to provide a clearer view of the buildings and outdoor spaces and how signage, landmarks, and spatial cues function without the flow of people obscuring areas.
Conducting wayfinding audits during summer makes it easier to assess the physical layout—identifying confusing corridors, poorly marked entrances, or routes that aren’t easily located. Conducting these audits can help to focus on how existing signage and messaging align (or don’t) with best practices, logical navigation paths, and allow for discussion with facilities staff, security teams, and administrators who are more available between academic years.
Ultimately, summer is the ideal time to proactively address issues and make evidence-based improvements, ensuring that when students return—especially new ones—campus navigation is intuitive, welcoming, and stress-free.