Wayfinding within complex buildings can be problematic under normal circumstances but can literally be life threatening during emergency situations, such as fires, terrorist attacks or natural disasters. While the role of signage in wayfinding is well known, in both everyday and emergency situations, it is not clear how environmental variables influence the users’ wayfinding behaviour, particularly when both types of information are competing. Such situations are very common because buildings are not always planned considering their actual purpose, such as the case of interventions in historical buildings, renovations and changes in buildings’ use. In these cases, the presence of signage positioned in opposition to the paths that the buildings’ visitors use most can result in low proficiency and/or give rise to safety critical situations since it can cause doubts regarding the route choice. The study of these critical situations, in which signage points to a direction and people may be attracted to the opposite one by some environmental variables (such as corridor width and brightness), may help to design better signage systems as well as safer buildings.
Signage plays an important role during wayfinding because it provides directional information that is explicitly available in the environment (Conroy, 2001). In fact, a signage system can increase indoor wayfinding performance because it facilitates how people find destinations within a complex building in everyday (e.g., Vilar, Rebelo, & Noriega, 2012) and emergency situations (e.g., Mantovani, Gamberini, Martinelli, & Varotto, 2001). For both studies, the existence of a signage system placed on the floor increased user’s wayfinding performance when compared with signs placed on...
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... or emergency – trying to escape from a fire), people tend to rely on the environmental variables (i.e., corridor width and brightness) to find the way; (H2) when signage and environmental variables are presented in competition (i.e., critical situation), the signage influence on users’ route-decision will be lower in the emergency situation; (H3) from the previous hypothesis, a supplementary one can be deduced, that predicts the existence of an interaction effect such that situational context (i.e., everyday vs. emergency situation) and the presence or absence of contradictory information (i.e., with or without signs) also influences the percentage of choices towards a particular direction. To test these hypotheses we compared the wayfinding behaviour (i.e., route-choices) using four experimental conditions: no-signs vs. signs and everyday vs. emergency situations.
On June 9, 2003, my life took an interesting turn. It was a sunny day. Blue skies, humidity insanely high, and I found myself at 4th Street and Constitution in Washington, D.C. I stood before an angled architectural masterpiece by famed architect I.M. Pei; its pointed corners jutted out towards the grassy Mall and Capitol Hill as if it were some sort of Picasso-esque compass pointing simultaneously towards all the tourist hot spots. (The one corner, purportedly the sharpest building corner in the world, wore a dark gray spot about eye level where thousands if not millions of tourists had touched it just to see how sharp it really was). I found myself standing before it, not as tourist . . . but as an employee on my first day of work.
A situation can drastically affect a person’s behavior, motivation and overall attitude. There have been many psychological studies that demonstrate the strong influence a situation has on a person’s behavior. Economy, living conditions, education and treatment can have an enormous impact on an individual’s conduct and demeanor. The ever-changing situations of the 19th century in America posed a challenge for various groups of people. People were often put in demanding situations and most reacted according to their current environment.
Binary-choice measures use simultaneous presentation which can alter how well a person is able to approximate each scenario. However, when using a continuous measure, the individuals assess one situation at a time and are therefore more likely to react accordingly when comparisons between the two are not necessary (DeSteno et al., 2002).
An everyday walk through the Downtown Champaign area is much more diverse in its structure than I had initially expected it to be. For my photo essay assignment, I took camera phone to downtown Champaign to capture different elements of the city. Compared to the city of Chicago, whose commercial spaces are taken by franchises, the downtown Champaign area has kept its traditional small town vibes with local companies while also taking on more modern commercial characteristics. The city has found a balance between the buildings and the fonts the accompany them which is what my photos revolve around. It was due to this idea that people passing through that downtown area experience both modern and traditional parts of the city.
Though the experiment shows that attention is vital for change detection, we should consider the size/ impact of the change in the environment. If the change to an environment is small, would it result in the change being detected? Do providing little clues draw attention effectively to where the change is being made? In support of this argument, Rensink (1997) showed that even with small clues, if the clue is not directed properly then detecting change will not have an effect. A proposal of Rensink is that the absence of attention will cause visual contents to be missed. On the other hand, Simon and Levin (1998) suggest that a person could miss things happening in their environment if his or her attention is occupied by something
Each night, I scuffed my shoes slowly along the streets, meandering closer to the building. Its height was visible from blocks away. The incongruous radiance provoked disgusted mutters and headshakes from seemingly everyone. Week after week, I ventured another few steps, until new sights and sounds were unlocked. At a certain gap in the fence by Fifth Street, you could make out the glow of a sign. If you circled around in the opposite direction, the giant cube of the trash bin was visible, weighed down by glass bottles and much more that children shouldn’t concern themselves with. I had early on discerned that the lights did, in fact, lead to a building, and it was my intent to eventually go inside to experience the fun that the outside boasted of through its blinking signs and grand size. By then, I could count the amount of steps that took me to reach the street corner across from the back
Everyday experience tells us that different actions need different environments to take place in a satisfactory way. This fact is of course taken into consideration by current theory of planning and architecture, but so far the problem has been treated in a too abstract way. ‘Taking place’ is usually understood in a quantitative, functional sense with implications such as spatial distribution and dimensioning. But inter-human functions are not similar everywhere, they take place in very different ways and demand places with different properties, in accordance with different cultural traditions and different environmental conditions.
Tires squeal across the hot asphalt; exhaust fumes fill the air. Innocent shoppers leap to safety as cars circle the neighborhood grocery store lot in search of the ideal parking spot. Engines revving. Adrenaline rushing. The driver's sole mission is to obtain a white lined rectangle of pavement before entering the race known as shopping. As a safety precaution, competent and considerate shoppers should be aware of the distinct character traits of the three annoying types of shoppers: Hurry Harry, Suburban Sally, and Picky Pete. Knowledge of their parking-lot-to-checkout-stand habits increases the chance of avoiding a head-on collision.
Introduction Disaster Recovery Planning is the critical factor that can prevent headaches or nightmares experienced by an organization in times of disaster. Having a disaster recovery plan marks the difference between organizations that can successfully manage crises with minimal cost, effort and with maximum speed, and those organizations that cannot. By having back-up plans, not only for equipment and network recovery, but also detailed disaster recovery plans that precisely outline what steps each person involved in recovery efforts should undertake, an organization can improve their recovery time and minimize the disruption time for their normal business functions. Thus, it is essential that disaster recovery plans are carefully laid out and updated regularly. Part of the plan should include a system where regular training occurs for network engineers and managers.
Evacuation plans and fire exits are also noticeable in the hospital. This shows that the health system provides therapeutic care and holistic care to the staffs, patients and visitors. It is a hazard sign that alerts everyone to know where to go. For example, if there are fire, with the evacuation plan and fire exits it will help the staffs, patients and visitors to know what to do and where to assemble. So it a clear procedure for everyone to evacuate the building in a safe manner during
Q. Katelijn, V. Jan & K. V. Cleempoel, 2009, The Interaction Between Interpreted Space, Mood and Behaviour in Retail Environments: A conceptual research model, University Hasselt, Department of Economy, Belgium
... people around, such as cafe or a restaurant near a busy street. Be safe, careful and alert!
So many things in buildings can make a person act or feel important. An example of this would be someone who is not used to having nice things and when they go out on vacation it’s something as simple as a nice hotel suite to take away the stress that life can sometimes give to a person. But on the other hand a person that already lives in a nice big house with new things may not appreciate the capacity of a nice hotel suite because they already get that on a daily basis. (Clayton & Myers, 2009)
I have discussed major safety topics including road and work safety and their effect in our daily living. We can’t evade from danger. The importance is that we learn to control and avoid factors that can cause us harm, injury or loss. This starts by making smart decisions. We should continue to teach our children to detect unsafe situations, places, things, and elements at an early age so that they practice safety habits throughout their life. In conclusion, is better to be safe than sorry.
The increase in unpredictable natural disasters events for a decade has led to put the disaster preparedness as a central issue in disaster management. Disaster preparedness reduces the risk of loss lives and injuries and increases a capacity for coping when hazard occurs. Considering the value of the preparatory behavior, governments, local, national and international institutions and non-government organizations made some efforts in promoting disaster preparedness. However, although a number of resources have been expended in an effort to promote behavioural preparedness, a common finding in research on natural disaster is that people fail to take preparation for such disaster events (Paton, 2005; Shaw 2004; Spittal, et.al, 2005; Tierney, 1993; Kenny, 2009; Kapucu, 2008; Coppola and Maloney, 2009). For example, the fact that nearly 91% of Americans live in a moderate to high risk of natural disasters, only 16% take a preparation for natural disaster (Ripley, 2006).