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m offers opportunities to craft individualized
routes for each person on each trip.
An example of the more traditional
strategy in Boston is the Freedom Trail, a
walking trail to historic sites marked with
red brick pavers midlining the sidewalk
(http://www.thefreedomtrail.org/). It is
a wonderful go-to for Boston tourists,
because it is well known and relatively
easy to find and follow. However, it may
not provide the optimal experience for all
tourists. What about people with mobility
challenges? Or people with only an hour to
spare? How can we give them the ability to
get the most out of their trip?
Modern Tools
RIGHT
WAZE community
based traffic and
navigation apps
Modern wayfinding tools typically have
three fundamental elements:
• good data
• an effective way of presenting that data
• social feedback.
The availability of good data, particularly
about destinations and transportation
options, is a necessity for personalized
wayfinding tools. Whether you’re a
researcher supporting a study, a public
employee looking for a specific statistic,
a citizen looking for information about
his or her city, or a developer of smart
phone applications based on that data, you
already have a wealth of resources at your
fingertips. See https://data.cityofboston.
gov/ for a source of data relating to the
City of Boston. Similarly, Massachusetts
Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), the
region’s transit agency, makes most of its
data available at http://realtime.mbta.com/.
Despite the fundamental importance of
good data, data alone is not sufficient.
Data repositories can be intimidating for
the inexperienced and data can be easily
misused by the uninformed. Not everyone
is used to trawling datasets for the most
useful information. This is where the
competitive market has responded, seeing
a demand for information presented in an
easily digestible way. For wayfinding, there
are now websites, smart phone applications,
and even digital displays that allow users
to interact with data in a way that is
meaningful to them, and easy to navigate.
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A third important factor in modern
wayfinding tools is the ability to provide
and make use of social feedback. Input from
prior users allows travelers and visitors to be
selective between the various tools, as well as
interpret the data in even more “meaningful”
ways. Data doesn’t provide opinions – people
have to use and interpret that information
to form their own opinions. For example,
knowing a restaurant’s location doesn’t tell
you if you want to go there. Reading reviews
on a popular website that rates restaurants
based on certain criteria, does. There are
many apps that have realized and capitalized
on this important factor in sifting through
what is often too much information, and too
many choices (Yelp® is a popular example).
Some apps provide ‘crowd sourced’ (i.e. by
many other users of the app) transportation
information in real-time (such as Waze®).
Such apps can be very useful for navigation
as they provide relevant, localized, and timely
information for the user.
Initiatives in Boston
When it comes to wayfinding, people in
Boston (and elsewhere) have learned quickly.