IMPROVING WAYFINDING IN HOSPITALS FOR THE DESIGN OF TRAUMA SPECIALIST HOSPITAL, BAUCHI

📄 Project Abstract

The purpose of this study was to establish ways of improving wayfinding in hospitals in Nigeria in response to the rise in trauma cases from insecurity in the country. The approach was explored in North East Nigeria to generate appropriate responses to wayfinding needs during emergencies. North East Nigeria is a geo political zone that has been vulnerable to various scales of terrorist attacks in the country. Two surveys were conducted in four hospitals to explore both existing wayfinding features and relationship between physical features, coded information and social practices in hospitals in North East Nigeria. Results from the first survey, visual survey and interviews, reveal extensive incorporation of wayfinding features with little or no guidelines, resulting to poor design, confusing signs and high dependency on social practices. The second, a questionnaire survey provided data analyzed for means (M) and Relative Agreement Index (RAI) under the three-wayfinding concept of physi...