Can I find it? Secret shopper study of wayfinding ease in public library facilities

Abstract

Wayfinding is how people figure out where they are (orient themselves) and how to get where they want to go (navigate). Cues that guide orientation and navigation in building include signage, maps, sight lines, open floor plans, color-coding, and more, all of which are designed to help people figure out where they are in the building and how they can get from that point to another point in the building. The goal of public libraries is to welcome people into the library and help them find the information they seek there, but when people get lost, they can feel frustrated, anxious, confused, and miserable. Therefore, public libraries should be easy for people to wayfind in so they can get from point A to point B without getting lost. To test whether public libraries are easy for people to navigate, a secret shopper quasi-experiment using task protocol was completed by an expert in both wayfinding and libraries in 17 public libraries in four English-speaking countries. The expert completed all the tasks in 94% of libraries, with only one task incomplete in one library in the sample. While times varied, and the expert did get lost or confused while completing some tasks in some libraries, overall, the public libraries in this sample were navigable for a new user. How easy they were to navigate was impacted by wayfinding challenges, such as multi-floor buildings, unusual classification schemes, and poor or hard to see signage.