Need to direct people through this corridor to the regular elevators.

At the Synesthesia conference this was the stairway up. Do we say this is the only stairway up, or do we tell people about the yellow staircase? How about the pink? (Probably not the pink; it probably feels too far. But the yellow is reasonable, or is it not?)

Anecdotal evidence says people will try to get to the second floor with these.

So despite all the discussion of opening this up, it is still “by RSVP only”? How exclusive (and therefore ironic)! I know this has been mentioned before but, I mean, when I (or rather “if I manage to”) graduate I won’t be able to ask people to come to see my project presentation? How depressing! And what has just been objected to is not even some new idea. Why hasn’t this been shot down weeks ago when we first brought it up? And the scoping… our project has never been correctly scoped…

A very short third site visit was made yesterday in the afternoon, because it was sunny. The lighting condition in the open space on the 5th floor was not perceptibly different. The sun was shining away from the building, so further checks will need to be performed in the morning when sunlight is expected to shine into the building.

The very short second site visit took place between 14:32 and 14:35 today. It’s also cloudy today. Being an artificially lit place, there was no discernable difference in lighting conditions in the second-floor corridor. There were classes going on in the two rooms, and a quick peek showed that the rooms are in fact quite well lit. On the 5th floor, the thing turned out to be an outward-facing spotlight, not an inward-facing camera. The open space looked fine in the afternoon, but we might have to wait until some sort of prototype is made to know if there really is going to be problems with the ambient lighting. There were also classes in the two rooms in that open space on the 5th floor. A quick peek showed that they are pretty well lit too.

Walking through the space looking for the rooms

This first walkthrough was conducted between 16:40 and 17:02. It was cloudy outside. In front of the main entrance are the express elevators. Signage need to be put there to make sure people know they only go to the 5th floor. There should also be signs to tell people to either take the stairs or go to the back for the regular elevators which can take them to the 2nd floor. On the 2nd floor, after several false starts, I found room 284: It was the room where I went to that strange presentation where everyone seemed to be a professor. Room 287 was at the end of the corridor. The corridor was not particularly well lit, but it was lit, by fluorescent lighting. Both 284 and 287 looked like board rooms, and they are both labelled “Conference Centre”s. As far as I remember 284 was not particularly well lit. From the entrance of the corridor no room signs were visible, though people would not get lost because the corridor is only one-way. Room 280, the balcony level of the auditorium is on the right, on the opposite side of room 284. If I exited from the auditorium, I would be able to see room 284 if told that’s room 284, and I might see room 287 if told to look through the window in the door to my right. There was a washroom right beside room 287, but it was locked. On the 5th floor, if I exited the express elevators, went through the corridors, then straight through the large open space, and continued into the corridor of the “Teknion Environmental Design Centre,” room 556 would be on my left (after passing room 558), within a space that was adequately lit by fluorescent lighting. Walking through the meandering corridor I could see no room signs, but at the dead end was a squarish open space, with an imposing-looking security camera staring right at you, and on my left was room 556. Continuing straight a bit more into the space, room 550 was to my right. The open space, and thus the signage for 556 and 550, were very well lit by natural lighting. Both Room 556 and 554 were labelled “Teknion Environmental Design Centre / Studio.” Room 550 was labelled “Industrial Design Centre / Studio.” This corridor was perceived to be one-way, though there was actually a staircase down near room 554. People can’t really get lost, though they would probably still feel a bit frustrated due to the lack of signage telling them where the rooms are.

Initial observations

• Room numbers are (just as I remembered it) not in a logical sequential order—starting from the elevator, we eventually reach a point where room numbers go backwards from 556 to 554 then 550
• Room signs are not really visible until you find the room
• Directions are not obvious
• People might run into locked washrooms

Stuff to work on, “known unknowns”

• Participant flow
  • Is there a possibility that a participant would go from the 2nd floor to the 5th floor, or vice versa? In other words, will any two break-out sessions run one after the other, without a “going back to the auditorium” in between?
  • Is lunch catered? If so where is it held?
• Ambient lighting conditions
  • How does sunlight fall into the open space on the 5th floor? Would that affect signage legibility?
• Maps on the web site
  • “System map”—OCAD (100 McCaul: do we need 49 at this scale?) + hotel + Massey College (+ TTC stations + main streets)
  • 100 McCaul + 49 McCaul
  • Schematic of how to move through the 1st, 2nd, and 5th floors
  • Navigating the 2nd and 5th floors, with reference to washroom locations
  • “Verbal map” versions of the above for people who can’t read graphical maps
  • Link to the official campus map PDF’s for the main building and, if necessary, 49 McCaul.
• How much budget do we have?
• Should we have a list of sessions posted on signage?

The meeting that I did not need to attend ended just a little over half an hour ago, and during the meeting I assigned myself to a whole bunch of wayfinding related tasks. It’s true. Vera might have thought that Dina assigned me, but I assigned myself as soon as she said if people are not taking up tasks Dina should assign them. And I really feared that Dina would assign those EGD tasks to someone else. The thing is, wayfinding can be a huge task in the conference, simply because our school’s wayfinding is so bad, which is really ironic because our school really should have the best wayfinding around town, but we don’t. But the real question is: Do I actually have the time to do all this?