A question that often comes up from our potential clients is whether we do outdoor to indoor routing. Now while the short answer is yes we do, we do ask what the use case is, as in many cases once you run through the user journey the ‘outdoor’ element of routing is often simplified.

That said, it is often the case that building environments are not solely indoor spaces but rather a campus of several buildings – think Airports and the numerous terminal buildings. In this situation being able to connect the terminals or buildings is a logical and necessary step for wayfinding to deliver on its objectives. The ins and outs of this can be as complex as the venue requires,  as for some this will be pedestrian only walkways while others will need you to understand car, shuttle, tram or public bus routes to offer the user the necessary options to get your user from A to B.

About 12 to 18 months ago this would have been the typical scenario that our clients would need, however we have noticed now that venue operators want to extend the customer experience beyond their immediate surroundings and are looking at owning the customer journey from further afield. The example that comes to mind is from the MICE or Attractions industries where, visitors / delegates may well be travelling for a dedicated purpose that involves a hotel stay as well as taking in the sights sounds of that location. Now the Venue they are visiting would like to their users to be able to access all the relevant information for their stay within the confines of their applications – typically mobile – so that they can drive a community feel within their offering. What this means practically from a wayfinding perspective is being able to offer a solution that enables users to route from their hotel to their conference, for example, all from within the comforts of their conference/exhibition application.

In this scenario, the ability to embed your venue within a Google Maps or Apple Maps but keeping your venue information within your own applications is a critical part of offering the end to end experience. This also extends to the search function of you application, meaning users can search for key information within the building but also have the option to find a nearby coffee shop in one of the local streets. This ultimately enhances the customer experience and drives opportunities to analyse your users in more detail to add additional offerings in the future.

To see how this is all possible and how you can unlock wayfinding opportunities further, please get in touch – indoor@point-consulting.com