Real World Wayfinding Methodologies Applied to Level Design
By: Chasen Herriott
Supervisor: Myque Ouellette
Masters of Interactive Technology degree conferred January 15, 2011
Thesis / Project completed: January 15, 2011

Wayfinding focuses in on three key pieces of information: where a person is in a building or environment, where their desired location lies, and the navigation of distance between the two.  In architecture and construction, where planning and constructing large complex spaces requires significant resources, understanding wayfinding and incorporating it into the design is a crucial element of a successful project.  Considering the fact that the design of virtual spaces for the purposes of level design so often pulls inspiration from real world architecture, it stands to reason that there are valuable and applicable practices to glean from architectural wayfinding.  The results of this study show a potential for wayfinding principles to provide value to level design.  Further research likely provides value as these results are merely preliminary and occasionally inconclusive.

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