Indoor wayfinding guides and checklists
Nine guides on choosing, budgeting, specifying and running indoor wayfinding, for facilities, patient experience, IT and procurement teams. Each one answers a single question and dates every outside fact it uses.
Start with the question you were asked
If you arrived with one question from a meeting, find your role, read the first guide, and leave the rest until you need it.
| If you work in | And the question is | Read |
|---|---|---|
| Facilities and estates | What will it cost, and what do we install? | |
| Procurement | How do we write a fair tender? | |
| Patient experience | How do we plan for patients and families? | |
| IT and GIS | What format is our map in, and can we get it out? | |
| Anyone asked about a blue dot | Do we need beacons? |
Every guide, by subject
L1 2 guides
Buyer’s guides
Choosing a system and budgeting for it, before the first vendor call.
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How to choose indoor wayfinding software
Twelve questions to ask any indoor wayfinding vendor, a printable scorecard, red flags to watch for and a fair way to build a shortlist. -
How much does indoor wayfinding cost?
What drives the cost of indoor wayfinding, from map data and software to kiosk hardware and services, with dated public price points and a pilot worksheet.
L2 1 guide
Hospitals
Planning for outpatients and visitors, in India and the GCC.
L3 1 guide
Public sector
Tender documents a procurement team can copy and adapt.
L4 1 guide
Positioning
Where “You are here” comes from, and what a blue dot really takes.
L5 2 guides
Standards and data
Map formats, CAD drawings, and getting your data in and out.
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What is IMDF? The indoor map format, explained
IMDF is Apple’s indoor map format and an OGC Community Standard. What an IMDF archive holds, what it is used for, and how DigiMaps exports it. -
From AutoCAD DWG to an interactive indoor map
Step by step from AutoCAD DWG or DXF floor plans to a published interactive map, covering layers, room labels, scale, routes and the checks before launch.
L6 1 guide
Accessibility
Step-free routes, kiosk reach and directions for every visitor.
L7 1 guide
Operations
Installing, testing and running kiosks once the project is signed.
Two tools for when the reading is done
The glossary defines the terms vendors use, from IMDF to kiosk origin, in a sentence each. The pilot planner turns your building into a pilot scope sheet: what we would set up, what you provide, and the open questions.
To see it working first, try the explorer on the home page: a sample venue you can route around in your browser.
How these guides are written
The same rules apply to every page here, so you can judge the guides by them.
Editorial rules
- Outside facts
- Linked to the source, with the date we checked it
- Product facts
- From our own product records. Planned features are labelled roadmap
- Other vendors
- Named only with a public source, including where they are the better choice
- Examples
- Fictional venues such as Wayvale General Hospital. No customer names
- Numbers
- No uptime figures, venue counts or accuracy claims we have not measured
- Updates
- Every guide shows the date it was last updated
About these guides
Who writes these guides?
The DigiMaps team at DigiSigns, a digital signage company in New Delhi. Where a guide compares products, it says where DigiMaps fits and where another kind of product is the better choice. Every outside fact links to its source, with the date we checked it.
Can we reuse the tender specification and the checklists?
Yes. The tender specification and the kiosk acceptance checklist are written to be copied into your own documents and edited. Keep the requirement IDs, so bidders answer line by line and the same IDs carry through to testing.
Do we have to fill in a form to read them?
No. Every guide here is an ordinary web page with no form in front of it. The forms on this site are only for booking a demo, contacting us, asking about a pilot or applying as a partner.
Where do the DigiMaps facts in the guides come from?
From our own product records and test results. Anything planned rather than shipped is labelled as roadmap. We do not quote customer results, because we do not have named customers yet.
How current are the prices and competitor facts?
Each guide shows the date it was last updated, and each outside price or competitor fact carries the date we checked it. Vendors change their pages without notice, so check the source before relying on a figure.
Bring a floor plan and your questions
Book a 30-minute walkthrough on a fictional demo venue. Bring one of your floor plans and we will show how a drawing like it comes in, answer the questions these guides raise for your building, and say plainly what a pilot would involve.