James Bosma (00:01)
Welcome to Meet the Waymakers. Today's featured Waymaker is Jonathan Mugmon. Jonathan is a principal and director at Populous, a world-leading architecture practice that specializes in designing stadiums and large-scale entertainment venues around the world. Jonathan's first book, The Science of Wayfinding: Psychology, Strategy, and Navigation in Large Scale Environments, will be available on Amazon by the time this episode airs, and Jonathan is actually picking up a box full of those books as soon as we finish this episode.
So welcome to the podcast, Jonathan. We'd like to start all of our guests off with a standard warm-up question. Can you tell me about an experience you've had when you were hopelessly lost?

Jonathan Mugmon (00:42)
Sure, James. And thank you for having me on the podcast. It's really exciting to be able to chat with you for a little while today and share some of the insights that went into the writing of the book and our practice here at Populous.

So, you know, I was thinking about several instances. One thing that's sort of funny that makes at least me, as a wayfinding planner and designer, think about this thoughtfully is that I find that I get lost quite a bit, and that probably makes me a more empathetic designer from the wayfinding perspective.

But I remember about four years ago, I was with my wife and two kids in Yosemite National Park, and we had just finished a day of exploring via car. We were getting towards the parking lot and had just packed up all of our stuff and were ready to go. We looked at our watches and thought, "We have a little extra time, we could spend it." There was a sign adjacent to where we parked that said, "Loop trail, two miles this direction." So we thought, "Okay, two miles, we can do that in probably 45 minutes or so." So we took off on the trail and left some of the things that we would normally have in the car, such as hats and extra water bottles, without worrying about a map.

It turned out that it wasn't a loop trail at all, and there was little signage, so we couldn't find our way. I got uncertain, which leads to hesitation and anxiety, and I felt very vulnerable. Here I am with two kids and my wife, and there was literally nobody else that we could see for the majority of the trail as we were getting deeper into the woods. It turned out that while it was supposedly a loop trail, it just wasn't signed well. There were no recognizable landmarks, the naming wasn't positive from the trailhead, and we had no reassurance or confirmation that we were still on the right path.

Luckily, we ran into a couple of people who were familiar with the path because they were regulars, and they pointed us in the right direction so we were able to find our way. But it really makes you think about getting lost and teaches you that wayfinding is not necessarily always a convenience, it's an infrastructure for confidence, and sometimes even safety from anxiety. So our role is really important, and sometimes it takes experiencing those moments of vulnerability for us to figure that out.

James Bosma (02:50)
Was a strongly worded email sent to the Parks Commission after that experience?

Jonathan Mugmon (02:52)
No, I didn't follow up. It's probably harder to track down the right person who is responsible for that than to just take it as a good story and understand that we need to prepare before we head out to the trail, making sure we have our water bottles and a map with us before we go out. In that case, there was no Wi-Fi and no cell service in the center of a national park. So while I may have sat down and tried to bring up Google Maps, there was just nothing to be found. It worked out for the best, but it was something to put you into the empathetic shoes of the people we work for.

James Bosma (03:28)
Right. Every time I hear these stories, I think of that Seinfeld episode: "Is anyone here a marine biologist?" When I get lost in various places, I think of yelling, "Is anyone here a wayfinding specialist?"

Jonathan Mugmon (03:40)
Haha! That proves that a wayfinding specialist might not be able to solve it.

James Bosma (03:45)
That's true!

So I feel like we've already learned a bit more about you, but let's learn a bit more. How did you get started in your career, and who or what most influenced your approach early in your career?

Jonathan Mugmon (03:53)
Sure. I had just graduated from grad school in North Carolina and had a friend who was an undergrad who worked at an urban design firm by the name of Glatting Jackson. I was planning on going back to teaching at the local university where I had earned my undergraduate degree, as they had offered me a position.

This was summertime, and this friend of mine had just won—as part of a larger project—a streetscape project for a small city that involved doing a wayfinding and branding plan. She was going to handle the branding component, but needed help on the wayfinding side and thought that I could be helpful as I had an undergraduate degree in graphic design and my graduate degree in environmental design.

This was a firm whose primary business was urban design, landscape architecture, and transportation planning. I ended up staying there with that same group of people for about 12 years. Over the course of that time, the firm was bought by bigger firms, but we stayed with the same group. That taught me how to think about paths, routes, destinations, districts, and barriers to movement. How to think about these places where people move, not just thinking about signs themselves, but understanding how people physically work and move through space.

And then after, that company was bought by multiple other companies. As I said, I was with the same group, and it grew to a company that bought us by about 120,000 people. I ended up deciding to transition somewhere a little bit different where I felt I could add value and learn from it. So I moved to London and worked for a company called Applied Wayfinding, which has a great reputation for doing pedestrian wayfinding systems. Their real focus is on user-centered design, environmental legibility, and a bit of the psychology of navigation. We worked on projects like Legible London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Google's headquarters, and Lusail City, which was a brand new city being built in Qatar for the World Cup in 2022.

What I learned there was demonstrating that places themselves can be the navigation system, not just the signs. How we have things called intuitive navigation. I learned that what people bring with them is just as important as what they find in those spaces, such as behaviors and emotions in the environment, which influence the perception of these spaces.

I was very lucky to go beyond the education I received in school to apply that understanding. Now I'm with Populous—I've been here a decade now—and I manage and lead a group of about 25 people across projects. We're working on high-volume environments where movement, operations, safety, and guest experience are all of primary importance. We always start with human behavior to determine what communication is needed.

James Bosma (06:42)
At Populous, can you tell us a little bit more about the scope and scale of the kinds of projects you work on? Are there examples of projects that you can share with us?

Jonathan Mugmon (06:53)
Sure. Well, Populous, for those who are unfamiliar, is a global design practice. While we're known for architecture, we call ourselves a design practice because we have multiple disciplines where large numbers of people come together in the types of places we design: stadiums, arenas, convention centers, airports, and major events of all types.

Our team, the wayfinding team specifically, is involved with almost every project that Populous works on. We have a US practice, which I manage the wayfinding for; a London-based practice, which manages the Middle East and Europe; and a practice in Brisbane that handles the APAC region. Each has leaders within the wayfinding practice.

My team spans the entire journey of how people get from the city to the sites of our venues. Some of our projects range from convention centers to sports venues for the NFL, NBA, Major League Soccer, hockey, and baseball—and even venues with a mix of uses, like Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, which hosts both NFL games and European Soccer League games. We work on the Olympics and have worked on multiple Super Bowls, as well as projects that don't have an easy classification, like the MSG Sphere.

These types of projects involve architecture, but more importantly for us, it's about operations, crowd movement, accessibility, branding, and technology integration. So when you're talking about a project where you have 65,000 people moving through an unfamiliar environment, what engages me is the challenge of making sure each of those people feels safe and comfortable, and is able to use the system in the place to move through it easily.

James Bosma (08:41)
Are there any particular projects that have been especially rewarding for you that you'd like to share?

Jonathan Mugmon (08:48)
Sure, I have two examples, and both are related to the Super Bowl.

Back during COVID, we were asked by the NFL to come help them as they were getting ready to implement the Super Bowl at SoFi Stadium. Ironically, it was in Los Angeles last time and it's going to be in Los Angeles again this year. The client had said that the stadium wasn't really ready to handle the Super Bowl because while they usually overlay all the existing signage, they don't usually overlay the wayfinding for how people navigate the interior building.

We were able to go in there and effectively change all of the signage for the entire interior of the stadium. The SoFi client came back to us after the Super Bowl and said, "Our venue has never performed as well as it did during the most high-pressure event that we had. We want you to take a look and develop a rationale or strategy for why it's not performing as well as it should with its permanent sign system, and redo that." So we spent the next three years, as they had budget to come on board, redoing the wayfinding system as much as we could. That was a really fun project that affected not only doing a great job with the Super Bowl, but also all the events afterwards.

Subsequently, each year we are involved with Super Bowl wayfinding in terms of evaluation. Another firm actually implements the wayfinding system, but we develop the strategy and recommendations for the NFL each year on what adjustments should be made to different venues year after year. This will be my sixth Super Bowl where we go in, observe how the venue is working, and make recommendations for future improvements. That has spurred improvements such as having color-coded tickets for each entrance to distribute audiences, making sure signs are visible overhead, and distributing crowds easily through the concourse so there isn't an abundance of crowds in one particular area. Working at SoFi and continuing our work on the Super Bowl for the NFL has been really great.

James Bosma (10:54)
Amazing. Let's talk a bit more about your book, The Science of Wayfinding. Why did you decide to write it, and who is it written for?

Jonathan Mugmon (11:04)
Twenty-seven years ago, when I started out in this industry, there was no comprehensive resource explaining how to plan a wayfinding system from research to implementation. I was always struck by clients who have a design eye and opinions just as much as our designers do. When coming up with what is typically a subjective rationale for why we designed a graphic or an element the way we did, how are we more right than they are if we need to explain it? Coming up with a defensible design rationale mechanism for why we made these decisions was important for us to maintain our scope, budget, and timeline, without having to change things repeatedly.

So I did my best to learn as much as I could to make defensible designs. There are excellent books on signage design and environmental graphics, but I felt there was still a need for a comprehensive resource connecting users to psychology, behavioral observation, and operational planning to design and implement wayfinding systems, especially at a large scale.

While there are books by Wayne Hunt; Chris Calori and David Vanden-Eynden; Craig Berger; David Gibson; and Paul Arthur, those are all about 20 years old, if not older, and they mainly focus on design. They're great books for getting into it, but my goal was talking about how to understand user research and psychological methodologies and align those with best practices. I wrote this book by reverse-engineering the things I had seen that create great wayfinding systems.

It's for wayfinding planners and designers, but also architects, facility operators, students, and clients who want to influence how their environments are organized. I wrote this book as something I wish I had when I started out to jumpstart my career.

James Bosma (12:57)
I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but since I don't have a copy yet, I'm going by the blurb on Amazon, which says the book focuses on blending human-centred design, behavioural analysis, and operational planning. Can you tell us a bit more about those disciplines and why it's so important to take them into account?

Jonathan Mugmon (13:15)
Sure. Let's go in order.

Human-centred design basically asks: who are the users, what do they need, what do they fear, and what may prevent them from navigating independently with confidence? It's about understanding what those people need when they come to a facility.

Behavioural analysis examines what people actually do—not just what is on plans, but through surveys and observing what designers assume they do, as well as the baggage that people bring with them to these facilities.

Operational planning accounts for how the venue functions: ingress, egress, security, queue management, ticketing, premium access, emergency conditions, and changing events. All of these factors change how people experience these high-volume places.

Any discipline by itself is incomplete. If you're a graphic designer, you're coming at it through your lens; if you're an architect, you're coming through yours. A visually clear sign can direct people toward a route that is overloaded or closed, so the process needs to align with the individual needs of the users. That comes down to one word: empathy. That defines the needs of the users as they come into an environment. We really pay attention to who the users are, and that's a big step in our process before we start designing anything.

James Bosma (14:38)
Great! That's a great callback to your getting-lost story as well. How much the experience you had feeds into the work you do now.

I recently read another book called Welcome to Your World: How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives. It's all about how building design impacts us psychologically. The author is an architect, and it's a fascinating book, but you would almost think the publisher said, "This is a great start. Now if you could just remove any and all practical references to wayfinding and signage, I think we'll really have something people will like." If you look at my copy, you'll see angry notes in the margin saying, "Why aren't you just talking about signs here?" rather than how people look at a building to judge what it's for based on how it looks.

In your own book, you argue for a cultural shift: treating wayfinding not as a signage afterthought, but as a critical part of user experience and crowd safety. Often, wayfinding strategy is done by a separate firm, but you work as part of a wayfinding practice within an architectural firm. I imagine that's a big advantage in terms of your company's understanding of the value of a good wayfinding strategy. To what extent is that true? In the architectural world, they don't always focus as much on wayfinding and signage as they could.

Jonathan Mugmon (15:54)
True. Working within an architectural firm, there are some advantages and some challenges, as you note.

Because wayfinding can be integrated into the architecture instead of just applied as an afterthought. One of the biggest advantages that drew me to work inside this firm, as opposed to being a consultant at a smaller boutique firm outside, is early collaboration. It allows my team to actually influence the design. We meet with architects and designers when projects are still in concept, when it's still just a sketch-up model, talking about entrances, sightlines, vertical circulation, and landmarks that will help people remember one side of the building instead of the other. Many of these facilities are circular; when you get to an NFL stadium, it's essentially just a big circle from the concourse to the outside.

It also means influencing naming systems: what do we call the levels, entrances, and sections? Getting people to understand the intuitive nature of how we name and influence environments is even more important, I think, than the wayfinding system because if done properly—if someone enters on Level 1 as opposed to Level 6—it creates a connection in their head: "I came in on this level, so I know how to exit on this level." If there were an emergency at a facility where the naming system didn't quite work, where do people end up, and what challenges does that create?

It also allows for practical coordination of blocking where we mount signs for weight, foundations, lighting, power, and data, avoiding clashes with other elements. I've heard so many stories of designers who implement a wall graphic or sign, only to find a fire strobe or a plumbing pipe right where the sign is supposed to go. Having the ability to coordinate allows us to work in the same 3D Revit models as the architects, interior designers, and MEP (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing) consultants. Working in 3D models helps us visually identify problems and conflicts beforehand.

Integration isn't always automatic; we have to advocate for it and make sure we're at the table.

Architecture and wayfinding should tell the same story. When architects design, they aren't just creating a box; they're creating something defined by the story of the place or the team. We should tell that same story. Creative designers can get involved early in the design phase and influence the design story while it's still being molded.

James Bosma (18:28)
From working with airports and museums, I know wayfinding isn't always about getting people from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible; confidence is a very important factor as well. In an airport, you want people to confidently navigate to their gate, but then also have time to explore and shop. In a museum, you want them to wander and explore, not just race through. With large-scale entertainment events, I imagine that's even more true. It's not just getting from the train to your seat.

Jonathan Mugmon (19:01)
It is. I often teach this concept of understanding our users based on four different quadrants: time-rich or time-poor, and familiar or unfamiliar with the facility.

To your point, if I come to an airport and I am time-rich and unfamiliar, I want to find something cool where I can learn something, or sit down, have a great meal, and enjoy my time. Airports themselves are often some of the largest shopping malls in their respective cities. Giving people an understanding of how they can spend their time enjoyably is key.

On the other end of the spectrum, if I'm time-poor and unfamiliar, I just need to get to my gate or my seat because I hear the music starting for the concert and I'm missing the show I bought tickets for; either because I arrived late or couldn't get through the stadium queue lines fast enough. That requires a different type of information system.

Those four quadrants: time-rich, time-poor, familiar, and unfamiliar, are really important to ensure we capture the messaging needs of all audiences. That dictates how we provide information.
Within venues, you might have 60,000 people attending, with 15,000 to 20,000 coming through a single gate over the course of one hour, since venues typically open their gates 45 to 90 minutes before the event starts. That's a high demand to ensure capacity is maintained and wayfinding serves its purpose so people don't enter the gate, look at their ticket, say "I don't know where to go," and come to a complete stop, blocking the 10,000 people behind them.

Getting people in efficiently is critical. If I can give them an extra 5 to 10 minutes inside the venue, it improves their comfort level and serves the economic interests of the owner-operator, allowing guests time to buy popcorn, get a drink, or purchase a t-shirt. It aligns operations with financial sense by giving people comfort and time.

James Bosma (22:36)
You've worked on projects all around the world. What are some differences in design strategy between a stadium in, say, Kansas City versus one in Wrexham or the Middle East? How much does local culture impact your approach to wayfinding strategy?

Jonathan Mugmon (21:53)
It's huge on both the strategy planning side and the design side.

Having worked on projects in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the US, you really have to take a step back sometimes and realize that you might not know everything, especially regarding local culture and language. In the book, Chapters 17 and 18 are dedicated specifically to cultural understanding, empathetic towards cultures, and doing research.

Designing for cultures outside your own requires research to understand language requirements. Are multiple languages necessary, or is an international pictogram/icon system the right approach?

Even when dealing with diverse audiences within your home country, that's a key consideration.

As part of the book, I interviewed the person who directs the wayfinding system for the Olympics. Every four years, a local consultant handles the design for the specific locale, but a core team of directors manages the overall system out of Switzerland. I interviewed her in Chapter 19 to understand the best practices they've identified. When dealing with a global audience, what works universally? They take a pretty much a an icon or pictogram-based system and try to use that as the best practices.

Similarly, they analyze who the different users are entering through various gates to ensure the wayfinding system is uniquely tailored to them. Developing journey maps and personas based on entry areas, access levels, and ticketing is just as important as the messages themselves.

To answer your question about cultural differences: I encourage designers to visit the places they're designing for rather than working remotely. Engage experts in that particular culture, industry, and design space, and dedicate time to research from the start.

James Bosma (24:18)
You talked about working for the Super Bowl versus working on a stadium generally, and how the work you did for the Super Bowl improved wayfinding for regular games. As an extension of that, how do you handle designing for different user groups?

Jonathan Mugmon (24:35)
It's essential to understand our audience. For every project, we do persona development, which ties back to human-centered design. We map out general audiences, VIPs, elderly visitors, families, and accessible patrons, tying their ticket types and user profiles to destinations within the facility.

We then create journey maps to plot each path of travel and where users are permitted to go. We make sure each touchpoint, message, and graphic conveys the right information for that audience.

This empathetic approach benefits the user and helps us limit the number of messages per sign. We call that progressive disclosure, giving the right information to the right audience at the right time.

So if an entrance is primarily for VIPs, we don't need to list every section or destination in the venue. For a general audience entry, we need broader messaging because redundancy is required. A VIP might enter through a general entrance because they met a friend at a restaurant beforehand, so that was the easiest way in. There are many considerations regarding who users are and where they are coming from.

James Bosma (26:00)
What about emerging trends and technologies? What innovative things are happening in stadiums to enhance the wayfinding experience, and what are your thoughts on phone-based wayfinding apps?

Jonathan Mugmon (26:11)
It's easy to hang your hat on dynamic signs, but there are clear advantages to digital signage: particularly when you can display different messages for inbound traffic, event time, intermission, and egress.

For example, digital signage can focus purely on helping people find their seats during inbound entry. During the event, if a game is underway, signs can promote food and beverage options, announce a home run, or direct people to restrooms. On egress, dynamic signs can direct crowds to rideshares, bus lots, or parking exits. Since stadiums are large circles, people easily get confused about where they entered relative to where they sat.

Live crowd data can redirect patrons away from congested gates by displaying wait times, showing a 25-minute wait at one gate versus a 2-minute wait around the corner. Ticketing information linked to phone apps can integrate parking, gate, level, section, row, and seat data so the digital messaging on a phone aligns with physical wayfinding. Digital systems can also handle emergency takeovers and offer multilingual content.

I was in the airport yesterday in Detroit, and they have a lenticular display where you can see your particular ticket information about where to go to the Delta Gate based upon scanning your phone. And I was standing 10 feet away from my coworker who was standing on the other side and he was able to see his information about where his gate was. I was flying to a different destination than he was and I was able to see mine. So there's some interesting things happening there in regards to unique content based upon multiple view displays.

However, in crowded venues, people tend to put their phones away and look up. When walking in a crowd of thousands with stairs, escalators, and obstacles, permanent wayfinding must solve the core navigation problem. When clients ask about relying purely on digital or mobile solutions, I remind them that while digital tools have their place, crowds needing quick information require robust, permanent wayfinding. Static signs display permanent truths; digital signs communicate changing information. The future isn't just more screens, but more responsive environments that adapt to the changing needs of operators and users.

James Bosma (29:18)
In October, you'll be a keynote speaker at SEGD's annual conference. For our listeners who don't know, SEGD is the Society for Experiential Graphic Design. The conference will be held in Kansas City, where you and your head office are based. You and your colleagues are also leading a pre-conference wayfinding planning and design bootcamp. I've registered for that and am looking forward to participating! What can my classmates and I expect to learn during that workshop?

Jonathan Mugmon (29:44)
We want to give a practical view of the entire process of designing a wayfinding system using the principles we've discussed today.

Our wayfinding practice consists of three distinct disciplines:

• Wayfinding Planners: Predominantly architects or interior architects.
• Graphic Designers: Focused on system design, typography, legibility, and brand story.
• Technical Designers: Industrial and product designers who focus on constructability, form, and function.

We want to introduce workshop attendees to all three roles and show how we collaborate to deliver projects. We currently have over 60 active projects across the country, so understanding how these three disciplines work together on high-capacity projects is critical. We'll share our process for creating defensible design mechanisms, and we're really looking forward to it.

James Bosma (31:06)
As we start to wrap things up, is there anything I'm missing that you wish everyone knew about wayfinding?

Jonathan Mugmon (31:14)
Wayfinding is about more than just signs. It's how people understand and move through space. People rarely experience one isolated sign; they experience a connected system, and that's how we need to design.

Confusion is often caused in systems such as naming, architecture that's not intuitive or added on to operations or inconsistent information that has insufficient signage or additive signage that's just done ad hoc.

Good wayfinding is often invisible because a person never has to stop and think about it, that's when it's successful.

And while I named my book The Science of Wayfinding, there's also an art side to it as well. But I think that's been pretty well covered in the industry through the awards that are given out annually, as well as the books that are on the market. I wanted to add something unique by saying, you know, the research and the psychology to establish the logic is what's really important and missing within our system.

So I want to make sure that people understand that clarity is not a luxury; it's a service that we need to provide. And it's beyond just the beautification of it—it's also about understanding who the users are and making it work for them.

James Bosma (32:24)
You've given us great insights into these principles and practices. A lot of thought goes into what might seem like common sense, and it varies depending on the field and experience you're creating. What advice do you have for young people thinking of getting into this niche field?

Jonathan Mugmon (32:44)
Design with people, not simply for them. It's about conveying information by studying people as closely as you study topography, graphic design, or color.

Learn through observation. Don't be afraid to visit the places you're designing for to understand why people get stressed, and put yourself in their shoes. Go to an airport early, stand near a gate, and watch people arrive. Observe the differences between a business traveler rushing to baggage claim and a family of four searching for a restroom or diaper-changing station. Spend time in real places watching how people move, hesitate, ask for help, and recover from navigational mistakes.

Learn to communicate with clients and multidisciplinary teams. That needs to be taught more at the university level: how to run a business and collaborate across disciplines, because these projects are not done in isolation.

Finally, don't be afraid to start with imperfect knowledge. Ask questions, observe carefully, test your assumptions, and remain willing to learn from the people who actually use the space rather than relying solely on a design background.

James Bosma (34:17)
Thanks so much, Jonathan. Thanks for sharing your expertise today on the podcast, through your book, and through all the work you do. It's one thing to do your job day-to-day; it's another to share what you do to help make the field better.

We end every episode by giving our guests the last word, asking them to share a favorite traveller's blessing or well wishes. Do you have something you could share with us today?

Jonathan Mugmon (34:43)
Sure. My closing words would be: design for clarity, confidence, and human instinct. When we understand how our audience thinks, feels, and moves, we can create places that work better for everybody. That's what I would leave you with.