Alexandra Almond

About Alexandra Almond

https://alexandraalmond.com.au

Posts by Alexandra Almond:

prototypes (2)

The end of discovery research?

I remember when it was normal for me, as a designer in an organisation, to be the first person to talk to a customer about what their experience was like with said organisation. It was exciting, we were breaking new ground every project, finding out stuff that in hindsight seems obvious but at the time was revolutionary (“Can you believe, customers have added WAIT as a stage in your process?”).  

The first few weeks of every project would be spent doing one-on-one interviews with customers. Diving deep into their experience, getting up to speed with what was happening, going down rabbit holes, and then spending several more weeks looking a wall of post-it notes to make sense of what we heard.

I’m starting to think those days are over, for a whole lot of reasons, some of which I’ve listed below:

  1. It’s already been done. These days, many organisations already have bucket loads of customer research. There’ll be research reports from all the previous design projects, plus market research and surveys, a huge range of other data and statistics, and maybe even academic research into the broader field. It hasn’t necessarily helped with any given organisation getting a good grasp of their customers’ needs, and I know, you don’t trust the quality of the work that’s been done by someone else. But it still exists, and diving into a new round of discovery research feels… self-indulgent?
  2. It pretends there’ll be a moment in time when we know what the problem is. In fact, the problem can rarely be articulated as one thing. It’s almost always a whole range of factors that are intertwined, complicated, and always evolving. An approach that assumes we can have a fixed problem statement, doesn’t lend itself to adapting either as our knowledge expands or the problem itself changes.
  3. It separates the problem from the solution. When we’re trying to solve for something, the solution is an integral part of the problem. People’s experience is crafted by how the solution is currently designed, so if we’re trying to change that experience, we should be doing it in the context of how the solution is working and will work.
  4. It encourages reflection rather than action. I’ve never met a designer that didn’t love research, but that can lead to a tendency to dwell. To keep digging, find out more, confirm our findings. We need to be more focused on what we’re going to change, in order to make a difference.

Fundamentally, I think we’re telling ourselves a lie that discovery can identify the problem, in a way that will let us do anything about it.

Don’t get me wrong, I still want to do exploratory research with customers. I just think we need to rethink how we go about that.

Beyond the Double Diamond

Everyone’s old favourite model, the UK Design Council’s Double Diamond, posited originally (and with reason) that we needed the discovery phase because too many projects started with a false idea of what the problem was.

discovery_research 01

This rationale for doing discovery still exists. Despite how far we’ve come down the service design path and the swathe of existing research in almost every field (if not every organisation), too often we don’t have a clearly defined problem. Or people aren’t aligned around the problem, or they’re making assumptions about the problem, or they’re wrong about what the problem is.

So, we need to think about a different approach.

Playing between the problem and the solution space

Assuming we can access the existing research, we’ll find existing hypotheses about what the problem is, and what’s working and what’s not. Start there. Instead of ignoring what’s already known, take it on board and play between the problem space and the solution space from the start. 

The idea is that by putting solutions out there in a very draft format, we learn more about the problem space and can evolve solutions accordingly.

discovery_research 02

In practice this means:

  • We’re still researching with customers, but we’re doing it iteratively and with prototypes to test our thinking, rather than an open ended discussion guide.
  • We still start each session with open questions (ie. “Tell me how this currently works for you”) so customers can prioritise what’s most important to them, and identify what’s working and what’s not.
  • We then use some form of artefact—paper prototypes or concept cards for example—based on what we already know, to provoke a response. Remembering this is not about yes or no answers, it’s about understanding the rationale behind why something is of interest or not, to feed into our understanding of both the problem and the solution spaces.
  • We’ll need several rounds of customer research, with some time to reflect in between, to reiterate our understanding of the problem. Each round should involve iterating prototypes, probably creating new ones based on what we learned, with the artefacts getting more detailed as we go.

In conclusion…

This is now my preferred approach to design challenges. It’s truly iterative and keeps the focus on learning from start to finish. It’s a win-win situation. The organisation is happy because we’re building on what they already know while moving straight into action, and we’re happy because we’re getting customer input into our solutions right from the start.

writing_editing

What it’s like to go through an editing process for the first time

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I’ve just handed the final proof-read of Thoroughly Disenchanted back to my editor at Harper Voyager. It’s been a fascinating journey to get to this point and I thought it worth sharing for those of you who are new to this as well.

There are three main stages to the editing process:

  • The Structural Edit: any big picture changes to plot, characterisation, story arcs or as the title says, structure.
  • The Copy Edit: a line by line review of the manuscript, sense checking and considering words and phrasing.
  • The Proof Read: typos and final tweaks.

I imagine each of these stages changes depending on how much and what sort of work the novel needs, and maybe with different publishers or editors. Here’s how it played out for me.

THE STRUCTURAL EDIT

I’d heard horror stories about people getting their edit letter and freaking out about the changes they were being asked to make. So it was with some trepidation that I opened the attachment and… felt absolutely SEEN. My editor and publisher obviously completely got what I was trying to do, loved my characters and the story, and I could see the rationale behind every suggestion. 

Some data:

  • My edit letter was 4 pages long (11 point font, single spaced)
  • It had 7 items to address, 6 of which were small-ish and one medium/large
  • I had about 6 weeks for my first response, then another 4 weeks going backwards and forwards with further tweaks

The most simple suggestion was to get rid of chapter titles, which were apparently “a bit too flippant compared to the tone set by the rest of the book”. I say this was the simplest suggestion, and yes it was absolutely the easiest to deal with, but actually it was the one I least wanted to action. I liked those chapter titles! But I sounded out a few trusted friends who mostly sided with the editor, and I wasn’t absolutely wedded to them so out they went.

Some other slightly more complex changes included going into more depth on one characterisation, altering the role and backstory of another character, providing more clarity on the magical system and how it all worked, and rewriting a couple of scenes.

The most complicated suggestion was to introduce a new character, one who was talked about but didn’t actually appear on the page originally. That meant significant rewrites of some parts and several new scenes. I can’t reveal the detail for spoiler purposes, but trust me, it was not a small change.

My editor, Shannon, was terrific. He framed the feedback in a very positive light and made sure I was aware they were just suggestions and I could do what I liked with them. He offered (and I took him up on) a brainstorming session mainly to work out how and where we should introduce the new character and what the implications of that would be.

I made myself a spreadsheet to track the suggestions, my initial thoughts on what I needed to do to address those, and the actual changes I made in the manuscript. I then bit each change off piece by piece, easiest to most complicated. It was actually much easier than I expected and not as daunting as I feared.           

THE COPY EDIT

I’d kind of presumed the editing rounds got smaller as they went on, so the structural edit would be the biggest, the copy edit would be more manageable and the proof-read I’d be able to knock over in a night.

Boy was I wrong!

I got a heads up when Shannon messaged to say the copy-editor had some structural suggestions. We had a phone call to talk through them and they all made sense, so that was cool. And then a few weeks later his email sending through the changes, came with a reminder to look after my mental health as I was going through it…

Some facts:

  • The marked up manuscript was accompanied by a 5 page cover letter—so longer than my structural edit letter—with 17 sub-headings.
  • There were OVER 700 COMMENTS in the document, and many more marked up changes.
  • I had to get an initial response back within a week for us to send the ARCs to print (which I knew about in advance, and had agreed to) but then I had a further 3 weeks to review and make final changes.

This was quite a different process to the structural edits, and in some ways it was easier because the suggestions were marked up in the document. So I didn’t have to decide where and how to make the suggested change, just whether I wanted to or not.

The 700+ comments fell broadly into these categories:

  • Explaining why she’d made a word or phrase change.
  • Asking a simple question (Did you mean to use this word?)
  • Asking a complicated question (This doesn’t make sense; what are you trying to achieve?)
  • Suggestion for where something needed to be reworked, and why.

I agreed with by far the majority of the changes, and I was impressed with the attention to detail. Here’s one example, explaining a very simple marked up change:

“Suggest tweak to make language sound more natural and not too explanatory. Also to avoid repeating the ‘intellectual and emotional connection’ reference that’s already been brought up on page 4 and is coming up soon again on page 16.”

But even though I agreed with the changes, and honestly believe my book is significantly better because of them, the sheer scale of the task was overwhelming. Plus there’s something about looking at a sea of red mark-ups that hurts your soul.

It also involved a lot of work; we’d created some plot holes with the structural edit that needed fixing, and other parts required rewrites and new scenes. It wasn’t just clicking “accept all” on the changes.

So, I found this much more draining than the structural edit. A part of that is expectation—I’d thought it would be easier—but I do think it was also more work. 

THE PROOF READ

That part was fun to start with. Shannon sent me a printout of the formatted manuscript, so I read it in hardcopy rather than online, and marked up changes with a pen. I found a few changes but they were minor; words and phrases rather than anything structural. I had heaps of time, too, so I put it aside for a month and came back to it with slightly fresh eyes.

Shannon combined my markups with the changes from the proofreader and sent it back to me for one absolutely final review. 

Some facts:

  • There were a further 490 comments! Apparently that’s quite light on, and that 800 would have been quite normal. But still…
  • I had about three weeks to turn this around. 

These were all quite minor changes and yet, I found myself saying “no” to more of them than I had in previous rounds. I stopped myself a couple of times and stepped away from the computer, went for a walk and made a cup of tea, and came back to it with a fresh mind. If my instinct was to say no, I made myself read the original text and then the changed text out loud to see if it scanned better. If I still preferred my original wording, I tried to articulate why, just to make sure I wasn’t being pedantic.

Shannon reassured me every step of the way that it was my book, my words, and I didn’t have to make any changes I didn’t want. But maybe because I’m a debut author, I was nervous about rejecting something that might be legitimate feedback, that I was just not ready to hear. Hence if I rejected something, I had to have a really good reason why.

I ended up saying “no” to quite a lot of suggestions; particularly those that I thought changed my voice, or the cadence or rhythm of the text, and most of the dialogue amendments (I don’t care if it’s grammatically incorrect, that’s how she speaks!)

I accepted quite a few changes that I didn’t really agree with, but I felt they were so minor that it didn’t really matter. That was a deliberate decision to focus on the things that mattered most to me, and let the small stuff go. 

I thought the proof read would be super quick, but actually I took nearly my allotted three weeks to get the final response. This was mainly because I knew I had time, so I didn’t rush. But it’s also because I had to think about nearly every suggestion, and take lots of mental health breaks. 

* * *

So there you have it, the editing process with a trad publisher through the eyes of a first-time author.

It took 7 months from the time I got my structural edit letter in January, to finalising the proof read in August. I’ve been told this is longer than normal (it was certainly longer than I expected). I was always clear on what I had to do by when, and the time frames were reasonable and flexible if needed.

I’ve been enormously lucky to have such great support and commitment from Harper Voyager, and I’m very excited about where Thoroughly Disenchanted has landed.

Happy writing!

 

Note: KJ Charles has an excellent blog about how writers and editors deal with disagreement.

prototypes (4)

My first published novel is not my first manuscript (not even close)

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Six years ago I typed “The End” on my first manuscript, and was convinced I’d written a masterpiece.

Reader, I had not.

I sent it off for external validation by means of a paid manuscript assessment, and in hindsight I got lots of great advice. I didn’t pay attention to any of that, though. The only thing I heard was “I’m sure you’ll be able to find an agent”. Clearly the assessor had recognised it was only a matter of time before I became a best-selling superstar.

It took a year and rejections from nearly every publisher and agent in Australia before I learned to listen to what I was being told. The tipping point was from someone slightly more blunt than most, and I remember her exact words. “Your writing is fine, but you have no idea about plot.”

I went back and looked again at all the feedback I’d been given, ignoring the ego stroking this time and just focusing on the “but…” comments. Surprisingly, there weren’t many themes. Sure, plotting came up a bit, but so did pacing, head hopping, dialogue, character arcs, the use of tropes and many other bits and pieces.

It turned out that there was so much wrong with my masterpiece that it was too hard to tell the whole truth, so people just pointed to the one thing that bugged them most. And that was different for everyone.

I didn’t have a masterpiece; I had 75,000 words of irredeemable triteness. No amount of rework was going to make it something worth reading.

I’m not gonna lie, the realisation hurt.

For some reason though, it never occurred to me to give up. The end product might have been terrible, and I had lost confidence in my ability to produce something good, but the act of writing was a revelation. This was something I loved and was going to keep doing. I just needed to figure out how to do it better.

I signed up for the first of many writing courses and began learning the art of writing. I joined writing associations and met other writers and talked about the craft, and the industry. This was not a moment in time but a way of life. I’m now a member of, and regularly attend workshops, conferences and training programs with:

  • Romance Writers of Australia
  • Australian Society of Authors
  • Writers Victoria
  • Queensland Writers’ Centre (the CYA conference is terrific)

Then there’s all the other non-association aligned courses or talks I sign up for just because they seem interesting or someone recommends them.

It wasn’t only training though. I started reading widely in the genres I wanted to write in. I entered any competition I could find that would give me feedback. I pitched to editors and agents at every opportunity, and I asked for feedback. I worked with an editor (May Peterson, cannot recommend highly enough) who helped me understand where I still needed to improve. I found a writers’ group who I trust implicitly, and I listen when they tell me something isn’t working.

And through all of this I kept writing. I wrote a second novel, then a third, fourth and a fifth. Each one was exponentially better than the one before (which just highlighted exactly how bad the first one was).

I call those first five manuscripts my practice novels. I was learning the craft of writing, but I was also learning what works for me; how I write best, what I like to write, what other people like that I write.

Thoroughly Disenchanted is novel six. I had no problem finding an agent for this one, or a publisher. It was remarkably quick and easy; if you count from when I started submitting it, and not from the moment I realised I needed to get better at this writing gig. If you’re consider the big picture it was not quick or easy; six years, countless hours of writing, lots of education, and not a little soul searching has led up to this novel being published.

I’ve been trying to think what the moral of this story is, and I’ve come up with several. Choose which works for you, or make up your own. 

  1. Keep writing (if you want to). The way to get better at writing is to write, but you need to enjoy the process of creation not just the external validation of succeeding.
  2. Keep learning. Take every opportunity you can to hear from others about what they do; not so you can copy it, but so you can figure out your own way.
  3. Listen to feedback. You don’t have to action all of it (or any of it!) but if you’re not listening, there’s no point asking for it. I have a whole other blog post lined up about this.

Happy writing!

Improving wayfinding at Melbourne’s busiest train station

Improving wayfinding at Melbourne’s busiest train station

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Improving wayfinding at Melbourne’s busiest train station

Improving wayfinding at Melbourne’s busiest train station

Public Transport Victoria was looking for ways to help passengers navigate their way through Flinders Street Station. The focus of this project was digital information displays.

It was not possible to test in situ so we simulated the experience in a warehouse, using signage and background sounds to set the mood. We involved 30 people with a range of demographics, backgrounds, accessible needs, experiences and knowledge of the train network. 

A week of testing sessions, with iterations each day, resulted in the final displays now live at Flinders Street Station, and  guidelines for rolling out digital information across the rail network. 

This project was a Finalist in the Digital category of Australia’s 2019 Clear Communication Awards. More detail on the approach is in this blog.  

Client: Public Transport Victoria
Year: 2018 (while Alexandra was working at Meld Studios)

Improving wayfinding at Melbourne’s busiest train station

Co-designing the APS Delivering Great Policy model

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IMAGE: Snapshot of the policy advice model
IMAGE: Snapshot of the policy advice model

Co-designing the APS Delivering Great Policy model

The project goal was to improve the ability of the APS to provide high-quality policy advice to the government.

Our initial role was to guide the team through a 10-week co-design process to develop a model for great policy advice. Our approach used existing knowledge as a baseline, and engaged over 180 stakeholders in a series of co-design workshops both inside and outside the ACT. 

We weren’t just creating a model, we were role modelling new ways of working, mindsets and approaches. These are the approaches that underpin the success of the new model, and testing them with the team enabled us to learn about the challenges and find ways to work through them. The process was made public at www.policyhub.gov.au.

After the official launch of the model prototype in late 2020, we tested it on real-life policy projects, and created a capability building framework to embed this way of working across the APS. 

As the APS Academy website states:
“The Delivering Great Policy model outlines the key elements of great policy advice, provides common language and a framework to align around, and helps policy advisors to keep what’s important front of mind to deliver the best quality advice in any given context.”

Client: Department of Premier & Cabinet
Year: 2019-22 (while Alexandra was working at Meld Studios)

good design
Full day forum with 158 people from a range of organisations

Breaking the cycle of Indigenous disadvantage in child protection

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Full day forum with 158 people from a range of organisations

Breaking the cycle of Indigenous disadvantage in child protection

This project worked with a government agency and an Indigenous peak body to develop an action plan to address the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families in the child protection system.

Alexandra partnered with Kristal Kinsela Consulting for this work. Kristal is a proud and passionate Indigenous business leader who is an expert at connecting people and moving them into action. 

Over six months in 2022 we engaged with a range of stakeholders through workshops, one–on-one discussions and small group sessions, to understand their perspectives and identify priorities.

The engagement culminated in a full day forum with 158 people from: 

  • Government agencies
  • Non-Indigenous peak bodies
  • Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander peak bodies
  • Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander community controlled organisations
  • Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander communities
  • Out-of-home care sector employees.

Client: DCYJMA
Year: 2022 (while Alexandra was working at Meld Studios)

attracting and retaining workers_01

Attracting and retaining key workers

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attracting and retaining workers_01

Attracting and retaining key workers

Working in collaboration with Tourism North East, we engaged with a broad range of stakeholders—local businesses, councils, citizens, workers, potential workers—to better understand why it’s so hard to attract and retain key workers in Victoria’s high country region.

We used a combination of primary research and iterative prototype testing to take what we already knew about this challenge, and turn it into real ideas we could try out. As the project moved forward so did our understanding of what the most pressing problems were, and what we might do about them.

We moved into prototyping and testing potential solutions for alternative employment models, as well as marketing strategies, and the availability and management of accommodation.

Client: Tourism North East
Year: 2022 (while Alexandra was working at Meld Studios)

Untitled design (45)

Keeping patients with chronic illnesses out of emergency 

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Untitled design (45)

Keeping patients with chronic illnesses out of emergency

Working with Brisbane North Health Alliance, our goal was to reduce the number of presentations to the emergency department by patients with chronic health conditions, in non-emergency situations.

The initial co-design exercise involved patients, hospital staff, GP clinics and support services, working together to understand the challenges and generate possible solutions. Our approach combined desktop research, semi-structured interviews, and generative co-design sessions.

The result was a 12 month pilot that significantly reduced ED presentation by the target clients by 75%, and returned 396% of the funding invested.

Following on from the success at Caboolture, the team received funding to expand the program to Redcliffe ED. Alexandra undertook a further co-design process with practitioners and patients in the Redcliffe area, to incorporate lessons learned from Caboolture and explore what might be different or need to change in order to adapt the program to Redcliffe.

Client: Brisbane North PHN
Year: 2021 Caboolture and 2023 Redcliffe (while Alexandra was working at Meld Studios)

metrics

Metrics are bad (sometimes)

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I understand the lure of a set of numbers that tell you how you’re tracking, but putting metrics in place to measure success is a move fraught with danger.

Perverse incentives

One of the key challenges is perverse incentives. For every metric you come up with, there’s a way you can improve that metric by going completely against the spirit of what you’re trying to achieve.

The most popular example of this is the Hanoi government trying to reduce the number of rats by offering a bounty for dead rats. What happened? People started breeding rats.

Or closer to home, how about the call centre I’m not allowed to name who had a KPI around calls being answered within fifteen minutes. Staff quickly figured out that if the call had been on hold for fifteen minutes, it was better for their stats not to answer it at all. So everyone they spoke to had been on hold less than fifteen minutes (yay, bonuses all round!) but their abandoned call rate skyrocketed.

I could list countless examples of this off the top of my head, and you could find more yourself just by googling it. The moment you put a metric in place, you open yourself up to people ruining it, because they want to meet a target not the intent of the target.

Could we measure the outcome, not the output?

Maybe. Firstly you need to be clear on what the outcome is, and then you need to have ways to measure it.

It’s not easy. For example: think about building a block of apartments, where the outcome is creating a home (not just a place to live) where people feel comfortable and a part of their community. Traditional measures of success for apartments might be:

  • How quickly they sell.
  • The price they sell for (comparative to build cost).
  • The price they rent for.
  • Winning a design award.

They’re all very tangible things you could put a number on and compare to other apartment blocks in the area. But they’re all measuring the output; the physical block of apartments. None of them measure the outcome; a home.

You can get measures that are more geared towards outcomes, such as:

  • How long people stay.
  • How many of their neighbours they know.
  • How much time / money they spend locally.
  • Number of owner/occupiers versus renters.
  • Satisfaction with the property over time.

As you’ll see from these, outcomes measures are likely to be longer term, and on their own they won’t tell you if you’ve really created a home. You’ll still need to do some work — qualitative research, not just quantitative — to understand if you’ve succeeded.

And sadly, most people involved in designing an apartment block won’t ever be around to do this. Once the design is finished they move on, often before it’s even built.

What if evaluation was about learning, not measuring?

Another option is that we turn evaluation on its head and use metrics as a way to learn instead of to measure.

If the call centre with the fifteen minute rule adopted this, they’d end up with a completely different situation. If they’re not rewarding or punishing anyone for the target, but are just monitoring it along with a whole lot of other numbers, they might learn:

  • What days or times they have the longest hold times.
  • What sort of things trigger longer hold times.
  • If there are early warning signs for when hold times are about to blow out.

Knowing this, they could explore ways of dealing with hold times differently; predict when they need more staff or institute a call back system or something else completely.

This works well for an ongoing service like a call centre, but it’s a bit harder for a one-off build like the block of apartments. Having said that, if the architect used each building as a learning exercise and made a point of going back to understand what it’s like to actually live in the places they built, I have no doubt they’d create better apartments next time around.

Conclusion

Sadly, we’re not getting away from metrics any time soon. Business cases tend to demand quantifiable things that are easy to measure; and people like to be able to point to a statistic and say “look, it’s working!” (even if it’s not).

Push back where you can, but if all else fails and metrics are going to be used to measure success, try:

  • Thinking about the outcome you’re trying to achieve, not just the output, and all the ways you might measure that. Include some of those as part of the plan.
  • Building your evaluation plan to be about learning, not just about measuring.

Both of those things are almost certainly going to involve both qualitative and quantitative measures, and will help you build a more holistic picture of what’s going on.

Further reading

Check out the terrific Wikipedia page for more examples of perverse incentives: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive

Also this scholarly article on Academic Research in the 21st Century and all the ways they got incentives wrong: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ees.2016.0223

And this article on Perverse Incentives: The Limits of Metric-Based Evaluation: https://www.ieseinsight.com/doc.aspx?id=1907&idioma=2

public_transport

Some things we know about public transport and information

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We did a brainstorming session with the key people at Meld Studios who’ve done transport projects over the years, to get some input for a proposal I was writing. It turns out we know quite a lot about how people move through public transport environments and what that means for the information you provide them. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of the highlights for your reading pleasure.

Different people need different things.

People process information differently; sometimes an individual may be different from one day to the next. It can change depending on whether they’re familiar or unfamiliar users, if they’re neuro-diverse, their familiarity with the language, whether they have fixed expectations, if they’re in a hurry or not, if they’re tired or frustrated, and a whole range of other reasons.

That means there’s almost certainly not a single communications solution that will be fit for purpose for everyone, but rather layers of information and ways of presenting it. For example we know that a combination of fixed and digital signage provides confidence, and that colour wayfinding helps everyone whether or not they notice it, and that some people pay more attention to audio cues than visual. Those things can exist together without being overwhelming.

Information on the spot doesn’t exist in isolation.

Many people — particularly those with accessible needs — plan in advance, and use the information en route to support what they already know. Others use their own devices on the journey, or their prior experience to inform their decisions. What you provide in situ is usually complementary information, and does not stand alone.

Provide progressive disclosure and reassurance on the way.

Ideally, information is provided in advance of the passenger reaching a decision point, so they’re able to move forward with confidence rather than slowing down to make a choice. And once they have made a choice, reinforcing that with reassurance along the way is critical: “you’re heading the right way, still good, you’ve got this”.

The importance of planning for an individual depends on the cost of getting it wrong.

For example, going to the wrong platform means more to someone who is mobility impaired; missing the train is more frustrating if the services are infrequent; a change to departure platform means a guide dog no longer knows the route; obstructions or blocked paths may put vision impaired people at risk if the tactiles are still there and misleading.

You have to capture attention before you can give information.

There’s a difference between capturing people’s attention and providing information. This is particularly important for disruptions, when you need to let someone know something they’re not expecting.

Colour is important to get people’s attention. Many people ignore static signs, however orange is a colour many associate with an alert, disruption or change, and would therefore be more inclined to pay attention. Some people ignore automated announcements but will listen if the driver speaks.

During disruption, everyone becomes a planner.

Some people are non-planners by nature and prefer to just go with the flow, but as soon as something goes wrong, that tends to change. Obviously everyone wants as much notice as possible for disruptions, but even then they’ll plan in different ways. For example unfamiliar users will need more instructional information — ”tell me what to do” — and familiar users want to know what’s going on so they can figure their next steps out for themselves.

Context is critical.

People are catching transport for a purpose, and are often thinking about their end destination when taking in information. So providing information about external landmarks can contextualise those decisions for them; things like talking about “best exit for the Science Museum” rather than just labelling it Spotswood Station, or adding links and information for connecting services on different modes.

Let the architecture do the heavy lifting.

If you’re lucky enough to be building a station or stop at a greenfields site, the design of the space itself can maximise how intuitively people move through it. For example curved walls can guide customers’ eyes and act as a visual cue that they need to turn; artwork can also help to do this. Gatelines or totem poles are a visual cue that support wayfinding. If you’re working within existing infrastructure, you still need to be aware of positioning information so you’re not encouraging people to stop in walkways, or out in the weather.

Don’t underestimate the importance of a large font and colour contrast.

One of the key findings from any wayfinding testing we’ve ever done, is that the font needs to be bigger and colour contrast is an issue. This is for everyone, not just those with declared vision impairments.

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