What is “Visitability?”

Visitability is the ability of an institution to provide for the physical, emotional, and psychological needs and comforts of all of its visitors. It addresses the existence and quality of every physical visitor element including remote access, on-site personnel, services (rest rooms, store, food service), environmental spaces and shapes, visuals, and the map.

What is Wayfinding?

Part of “Visitability,” Wayfinding is the mental processes, environmental elements, and objects needed for people to orient themselves and navigate through an activity from start to finish. The goal of your wayfinding program should be to allow your visitors to create clear cognitive maps (below) of your entire real and cyber facility; feel -- and be – safe,comfortable, and smart; move around easily; and find what they need.

The most important element in wayfinding, a cognitive map is a practical understanding of a physical place that a person creates through a combination of background knowledge and experience of that place. It is built in a person’s memory through use of the senses, and does not necessarily resemble any type of conventionally produced map. Each person’s cognitive map is unique.