Hillside Signage

To gather research information I conducted interviews and walkthroughs of the building, administered surveys, made observations, competitor analysis, sketched designs and constructed prototypes.

User demographics:

Surveys, 25-64 years old, male and female, church attendance 1month to 9 years 

Walkthroughs, male 45 years old, female 44 years old, both parents of two boys, both married, members of neighboring church

 Research: Walk Through of Building / Meeting with Staff –  Took photos of current signage around the church. Talked with staff members about their frustrations with current signage and how they interact with it. Staff expressed what and how they would like to see the signage updated. They expressed that they would like to incorporate digital signage, specifically within the front entrance of the building. Also including the idea of a tree, as with their logo and branching out to the other areas of the church. 

Observation: On this Sunday morning, I arrived at Hillside at 9:15am to observe how “users”, church members and visitors interact with the signage within the church, especially the classrooms for children. I was mostly looking for families and parents or adults helping with children as they were the ones who interact most with the signage. Hillside has two front doors, two side doors, and an entryway within the sanctuary to enter for service on sunday morning. Hillside has a team of volunteers and staff members assigned to greet and direct members and visitors as they enter the church. They do an excellent job. So much so that may times signage is completely overlooked because they are being walked through each step by someone who is there to help them.

There was one parent who was new to the church that morning. He was approached and greeted by a volunteer. That volunteer helped the visitor sign in to their KidCheck system (attendance/safety system) and create an account, then they directed them to where they would be taking their children for sunday school that and foreseeable sunday mornings.

One of the struggles of this observation was that I mostly saw users who were members of the church who had prior knowledge of where they were going and how they were to get there. They knew how to navigate the building and didn’t really use the signage.

Survey: Two surveys were created and sent out. One was for staff members of Hillside and one was for members of Hillside. The purpose of both surveys was to determine how the church interacts with the current signage. The staff felt very strongly that the signage needed to be updated, while the church members didn’t seem to have such strong feelings about the signage. The members expressed they understood the signage, but many felt that the overall look could be updated.

Recorded Walk-Thru: Two users were each given the task of finding two rooms within the Christian Education hallway of the church building. Neither users had ever been to Hillside, so they did not have previous knowledge of the building layout or the signage used for the rooms. I had both users were a camcorder on their head to help see where they were looking as they searched for rooms. I asked that they narrate their actions as they moved through the hallway. Both users were able to complete the tasks of finding both rooms. Both users expressed that the wording of the signagage was not consistent. Specifically, several rooms had “3 year olds” listed on their sign. After completing their tasks I asked the users about their thoughts of having door signs that come out from the wall above the door. Both users felt that, that would improve the signage, especially when looking down the hallway and trying to determine the location of a room.

Competitor Analysis: I walked through two other churches in the Pittsburgh area, to see where their signage was placed for their Christian Education rooms. Also, the staff at Hillside provided me with photos of a church in the Atlanta area, that recently had their signage redone, and what they would like to see done for their updates. For the sketches and prototypes, I mostly focused on the photos from the Atlanta church.

Prototype Analysis: From the prototypes we realized that because the staff can’t predict the number of children that will be in each class from year to year there is a need to have the ability to change classrooms around to accommodate different class sizes (different rooms hold different amounts of children). To make this possible, the final prototype has links that the class name can be switch out. After seeing the designs I came up with, two of the prototypes were combined to create the final prototype.