What is the most useful thing to test in a wayfinding demo?

Give every vendor the same floor plan and ask them to route from the entrance to a room on another floor, then close the lift that route used. A routable system recalculates and explains the change. A designed map cannot, which tells you more than any feature list.

Do we need beacons before we can start?

No. A kiosk has a fixed position, so directions can start there and move to a visitor’s phone by QR code without any positioning hardware. Beacons or a positioning provider only matter if you want a moving blue dot on phones, which needs a site survey and, on iPhone, a native app.

Should we choose cloud hosting or our own server?

Ask your IT and information-security teams before the demo, because it narrows the field. Cloud is simpler to run. A server on your own network keeps visitor data on site, and some hospitals and government buildings require it. Ask each vendor whether they offer both and which region the cloud data sits in.

How many vendors should be on the shortlist?

Three or four is enough to compare. More than that and the scripted demo on your own floor plan becomes hard to run properly, which is the step that separates vendors.

What should a wayfinding quote include?

Separate lines for software, map conversion from your drawings, kiosk and screen hardware, installation, training and support, plus what each costs again in year two. A quote that bundles everything into one figure makes vendors impossible to compare.

How to choose indoor wayfinding software

First, check it is a map a router can use

Most confusion in this market comes from one word. To a signage company, “wayfinding” can mean a well-drawn floor plan on a screen. To a hospital estates team, it means telling a visitor at the main entrance how to reach Cardiology on Level 2 by the lift, because the stairs are no use to them.

AA picture of the floor

Shows where the rooms are
Cannot work out a route, a walking time or a lift change
Every change means new artwork

BA routable model of the floor

Doors, corridors, lifts and stairs joined as a graph
Routes, distances in metres and step-free options are calculated
Close one lift and every route changes

The same ground floor of a fictional demo hospital, twice. Directions, accessible routes and live closures all need drawing B, so ask every vendor which of the two you are being shown.

Only the second kind can calculate a route, a walking time or a step-free alternative. It is also the only kind that can react when a lift goes out of service. Ask this before anything else, because everything else on this page depends on it.

Twelve questions to ask every vendor

Use the same sheet for every vendor and fill it in during the demo, not afterwards from the brochure. A feature counts only when you see it working, so “it’s on the roadmap” scores the same as “no”.

Vendor scorecard

Is it a routable map, or a picture of one?

Good answer: Routes come from a graph of doors, corridors, lifts and stairs, with distances in metres.

Ask them to show: A route from the entrance to a room two floors up. Then close the lift it used.
Where does “You are here” come from on day one?

Good answer: Each kiosk has a fixed position and facing direction, and the route can move to a phone.

Ask them to show: Scan the kiosk’s QR code with your own phone and check the route is the same.
Who keeps the map current, and how?

Good answer: Your staff edit names, hours and rooms themselves, with roles, review and rollback.

Ask them to show: Rename a room, approve it, publish it, then roll it back.
What happens when part of the building closes?

Good answer: A closure goes live without republishing the map, and routes avoid it.

Ask them to show: Close a restroom and watch the kiosk route change.
Which screens does it run on, and on what hardware?

Good answer: Kiosks, phones without an app, signage players and your website, with minimum hardware in writing.

Ask them to show: The minimum specification for kiosk boards and signage players.
How does it handle accessibility?

Good answer: Step-free routes that never quietly fall back to stairs, plus large text, contrast and reach settings.

Ask them to show: A wheelchair route, and the vendor’s written accessibility statement with its date.
Which languages, and who approves translations?

Good answer: Your languages, right to left where needed, with your team approving every string.

Ask them to show: Switch the kiosk to your second language and search in that script.
Where does it run, and where does visitor data live?

Good answer: A hosting region named in the contract, or a server on your own network.

Ask them to show: The deployment diagram and a list of every outbound connection.
What does a kiosk do when the network drops?

Good answer: It keeps searching and routing from its cached map, then catches up.

Ask them to show: Pull the network cable during the demo.
Can you get your map and data out?

Good answer: Export in an open format such as IMDF or GeoJSON, plus a documented API.

Ask them to show: An export file from the demo venue that opens in another tool.
What is in the price, and what is not?

Good answer: A written quote that separates software, map conversion, hardware, installation and support.

Ask them to show: A sample quote for a building of your size.
What is shipped, and what is roadmap?

Good answer: A clear line between features you can use today and plans, with evidence for each claim.

Ask them to show: The documents behind any certification, accuracy or availability figure.

Score each answer 0 (no), 1 (partly, or only on a slide) or 2 (shown working in the demo). Total ___ / 24

Questions 3, 4 and 8 decide the running cost and the IT approval, and they are the easiest to rush in a demo. Questions 1, 2 and 9 decide whether visitors get anything useful on day one.

Run the demo so it tells you something

A vendor’s own demo venue is rehearsed. Yours is not, so use it.

Send the same floor plan to every vendor a week before. One floor is enough: a DWG or DXF file if you have one, a PDF if you do not.
Script five tasks and read them out: find a department by a misspelt name, route there step-free, close a restroom, switch the language, and hand the route to a phone.
Use your own phones, an iPhone and an Android, on mobile data rather than the vendor’s Wi-Fi.
Bring the person who will run it. A content editor from the front desk or mall operations will notice what a manager will not, such as how many clicks a name change takes.
Ask for the export at the end: the map as a file in an open format, plus the visitor statistics from the session.

Afterwards, compare scorecards side by side. If one vendor could not do a task on your floor plan, ask them to repeat it on a second call rather than accepting a recorded video.

Red flags

None of these rules a vendor out on its own. Each one is a prompt to ask a harder question.

What you hear	What to ask instead
An accuracy figure for phone positioning, before anyone has surveyed your building	Where was it measured, with how many test points, on which phones?
“Fully accessible” with no document behind it	The written accessibility statement, its date, and whether a third party checked it
Map changes go through the vendor’s support desk	Can our staff rename a room and close an area themselves, today?
A separate content system for kiosks, signage and the website	Does one publish update every screen?
No export format, or “we can arrange it”	Which file format, and can we see one now?
A logo wall but no reference you can call	Can we speak to a site like ours, without the vendor on the line?
One total price	The same quote split into software, map conversion, hardware, installation and support

Build a fair shortlist

Different products are built for different jobs, and the honest answer for some buildings is not us. The table groups vendors by what they are built around, with one example each from their own public pages. We checked every source on 24 October 2026.

If your priority is	Look at	Example, from the vendor’s own site
Wayfinding inside the hospital’s Epic MyChart app, with a blue dot	Mobile wayfinding specialists for US health systems	Gozio announces “Wayfinding for MyChart” on its home page
A phone blue dot as the core feature	Indoor positioning platforms	IndoorAtlas publishes per-venue production pricing for its positioning platform on its pricing page
Drawing and editing maps yourself in a self-serve tool	Self-serve map platforms	Mappedin prices by building floor area, on monthly or longer terms, per its pricing page
Many screens showing designed maps and directories, no routing	A digital signage CMS	Yodeck lists per-screen plans from USD 8 a month on its pricing page
Kiosk-led directions, two languages including Arabic, live closures, and hosting on your own network	Kiosk and signage-led wayfinding platforms	DigiMaps is built for this case (see below)

If you are writing a formal tender, put these priorities into a requirements table so every bidder answers the same way. Our tender specification template is vendor-neutral and free to copy. For the money side, read what drives the cost of indoor wayfinding before you ask for quotes.

Where DigiMaps fits, and where it does not

We would rather lose a deal in the first call than in month six.

DigiMaps is a good fit when	Look elsewhere when
Visitors start at kiosks, and you want the route on their phone by QR code with no app	You need a moving blue dot on iPhones on day one. That needs a native app, which is on our roadmap.
You need English and Arabic, right to left, approved by your own team	You need deep Epic MyChart integration. We offer deep links and an API, not an EHR integration.
Hospital or government IT wants everything on one server on site, even with no internet	You want to open an account yourself and see a published price today. Neither is available yet.
Your staff will post closures and notices themselves, and want routes to react within seconds	You need named reference sites in your country before you shortlist. We are looking for our first pilot sites.

The left column comes from our own product records, and we will show each item in a demo. For how phone positioning works with us, read indoor positioning, honestly.