How to Conduct a Wayfinding Audit in Your Care Home
A wayfinding audit is the essential first step to improving navigation in your care home. This practical guide provides a step-by-step checklist for assessing signage, landmarks, lighting, colour contrast, and environmental cues throughout your facility.
A wayfinding audit is a systematic assessment of how effectively your care home's environment supports navigation for residents living with dementia. It identifies gaps in signage, lighting, colour contrast, landmarks, and spatial design that contribute to disorientation and wandering. The DSDC recommends conducting a full wayfinding audit at least annually, with targeted reviews whenever the building layout changes or new residents with specific navigation challenges are admitted. The audit provides the evidence base for a prioritised improvement plan and generates documentation that demonstrates proactive environmental management to regulatory inspectors.
Preparing for the Audit#
Before beginning the physical audit, assemble a small team that includes a senior care practitioner, a maintenance or facilities staff member, and ideally a resident or family member. Prepare a floor plan of the building and gather any existing signage documentation. Schedule the audit to cover both daytime and evening conditions, as lighting and visibility change dramatically between shifts. Plan to walk every route that residents use, including less obvious paths such as the route from a resident's room to the garden or from the lounge to a specific toilet. Allow approximately two hours for a 40-bed home.
Wayfinding audit checklist -- assess each area for:
- Room identification: Can every room be identified by its door sign from at least two metres away?
- Directional signage: At every junction, is it clear which direction leads to toilets, dining room, lounge, and bedrooms?
- Projecting signs: Are there perpendicular signs at junctions that can be read from a distance along corridors?
- Colour contrast: Do signs contrast sufficiently with the walls they are mounted on? (Test with a monochrome photograph.)
- Consistency: Are all signs mounted at the same height, using the same design language?
- Lighting: Are signs adequately illuminated during the day, evening, and night?
- Landmarks: Is there a distinctive landmark or visual cue at every junction and corridor turning?
- Flooring: Are there any dark patches, patterns, or transitions that could be misinterpreted as obstacles?
- Dead ends: Are dead-end corridors clearly signed with redirection cues?
- Outdoor areas: Are garden entrances and paths clearly signed and visible from inside the building?
Conducting the Walk-Through#
Walk each route slowly, pausing at every decision point to assess the available information. Try to adopt the perspective of a resident with moderate dementia: can you identify the correct direction without reading small text or interpreting abstract symbols? Are there competing visual distractions that draw attention away from navigation cues? Note every location where you hesitate, feel uncertain, or have to actively search for information. These points of confusion are precisely where residents will struggle. Take photographs of each problem area to document your findings and support your improvement plan.
Pro Tip
Conduct part of the audit from a wheelchair to assess sign visibility from a seated position. Many residents use wheelchairs, walking frames, or walk with a pronounced stoop, which changes the sightline significantly. Signs that are clearly visible at standing eye level may be obscured or at an awkward angle from a seated position.
Scoring and Prioritising#
After completing the walk-through, score each area on a simple three-point scale: adequate (no changes needed), improvement required (minor adjustments such as adding a directional sign or improving lighting), or urgent (significant risk of disorientation or safety concern). Prioritise urgent items for immediate action and schedule improvements for items requiring attention. The DSDC suggests prioritising toilet signage, corridor junctions, and the route from bedrooms to dining rooms, as these are the journeys residents make most frequently and where wayfinding failures have the greatest impact on wellbeing.
Inspection preparation
CQC, Care Inspectorate, and HIQA inspectors increasingly assess wayfinding as part of the environment evaluation. A completed wayfinding audit with dated findings and a corresponding improvement plan provides compelling evidence that your care home takes environmental quality seriously. Keep your audit documentation in your inspection evidence folder.
Recommended Products
Once your audit identifies signage gaps, our complete range of DSDC 1A-accredited signs can fill them. From door signs to directional signs, projecting signs to decals, every product is designed to integrate into a cohesive wayfinding system. Order a free sample to assess quality against your specific walls and lighting conditions.
A wayfinding audit is not a one-off exercise but the beginning of a continuous improvement cycle. Repeat the audit quarterly, track progress against your improvement plan, and celebrate the gains. Staff will begin to see the environment through the eyes of residents, and small improvements will compound into a genuinely supportive, navigable living space.
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