Introduction

We originally decided to look at the efficiency of signs around the King Alfred campus. We were told quickly that the correct terminology for this is 'street furniture'. We decided the best way to collect evidence was to survey the area ourselves and to also ask the opinions of other students via a questionnaire. Our findings follow below...

We initially walked around the campus looking for examples of street furniture. These are two good examples of efficient signs. The first, on the left, gave an accurate direction as to where the reception is on campus. The second sign on the right, was part of a chain of signs that was used for a temporary purpose to direct visitors around the site.

Although there were some signs that were useful, there were many that were not. We discovered this tomb-like sign near the top of the campus. We found that this was particularly difficult to read and out of date. This sign is also hard to notice as it is at foot level and has been badly maintained.

This sign is loacted outside of the St. Edburgh building. As you can see, this sign is out of date as the student union is no longer located here. Although we know this from being current students, new students or visitors may become confused by this sign.

We found only two full maps of the campus, one at the top of the campus outside the main building anf the other at Medecroft. One of which was this one, which the 'you are here' red spot wasn't present. Generally we all agreed that these were useful signs and they helped us out at the beginning of our course. However, we did note that these signs are not wheelchair friendly, as the signs themselves are fairly tall and the key is located in the top right corner in a small font.

Results and Conclusion

Question 1: Do you think it is easy to navigate around campus?

Question 2: Do you know where registry is?

Question 3: Do you know where the perfomance gym is?

From the questionnaire we carried out, people have very mixed responses to whether the campus is well sign posted in the eyes of a new student or a visitor.

We asked two other open ended questions that could not be representwed in a graph. They were:

How would you go about finding these places?

How useful do you find street furniture on campus?

Overall the responses to these questions were to find these places they would ask reception, look at the maps or ask other students. There was very mixed answers on the usefulness of the street furniture ranging from 'rubbish' to 'very useful' and somebody even asking 'are there any signs?'

Our conclusion is that the university offers a limited amount of useful street furniture to aid new students and visitors in locating the available facilities. The street furniture that is currently on campus is ambigous and out of date. From our results it appears that students have struggled with navigating around campus and are not particularly satisfied with the street furniture available on campus.

To develop this investigation further, we would suggest in putting forward a proposal for street furniture to be renewed, reviewed and updated on campus in order to make directions clearer for all new students and visitors.

By Catherine, Charlie, Dave, Jade, Kirsty & Sadie