Way-Finding and Communication Design as strategic systems to improve the well-being of children in paediatric hospitals.

In recent years there has been a growing need to design way-finding systems and communication more effectively, as we realize the great importance they have in everyday people’s life, becoming necessary and operative guidelines tools for improving the quality of life. Sometimes these tools are used as simple signposting or mere decorations designed to embellish a specific space, as happens in place dedicated to children. Instead they are very important and strategic instruments able to improve the liveability and usability of specific environment by different kind of users. Among these ones, the children are very particular, because they feel, think and behave in a very different way beside the adults. Generally, the hospital environment causes a high level of stress in children. Indeed, because of their young ages, they have a very limited experience and therefore they do not have the psychological and emotional state to deal with kind of stressful environment. Way-finding systems and communication design products improving the user experience, are able not only to orient children inside unknown spaces, but also to make “familiar” a place never seen before, making the child feels at ease, avoiding or reducing the stress that this place can bring to the user.