Wayfinding in Senior Living Environments

How Tile and Design Can Improve Navigation For Older Adults in Senior Multi-living Communities & Facilities

The ability to know, remember, and navigate from one location to another depends on the information obtained from the environment by the working memory. While wayfinding in design can be helpful to all populations in many settings, such as airports and hospitals, it is crucial in senior living environments where many residents suffer from declining eyesight, visuospatial disorientation, or memory loss. (Visuospatial ability refers to a person’s capacity to identify visual and spatial relationships among objects.). With the increasing number of individuals with dementia entering assisted-living facilities, interior designers must create environments that allow residents to maintain their freedom of choice, privacy, human dignity, and access to social and recreational activities while accommodating wayfinding and spatial orientation needs.

Wayfinding Design Elements In Senior Living Environments

The flooring design featuring Crossville Moonstruck and Shades porcelain tile coffers an artful and practical approach to wayfinding.

Some wayfinding design elements include glare-resistant and visuospatial-friendly flooring, changes in color and contrast, and the use of cues, landmarks, and signage. Flooring options should incorporate warm tones because older adults experiencing visuospatial disorientation or declining eyesight can easily see them. Prior research assumed contrasting bright colors, such as red and yellow, adequately assisted older adults and individuals with visual impairment. New studies now show the brightness of select colors appears to be the same to an individual who is visually impaired and does not produce an adequate tonal contrast for effective navigation. Tonal contrast is more important than hue when designing a dementia-friendly environment, and LRVs (light-reflective values) are an important consideration when designing corridors (hallways full of doors can be confusing), entryways, and resident rooms. In addition to contrast and hue, sizing and patterns can also serve as navigational cues.

When designing floors for wayfinding in a senior living facility or multi-living environment, it’s also important to understand that any flooring material used in resident rooms or common areas should also be slip-resistant and flat to allow residents to walk comfortably without shoes and should not contain any bold patterns, speckles, or sparkles due to the possibility of disorientation or distraction.

Crossville Porcelain Tile Collections for Wayfinding

Crossville offers architects and designers many slip-resistant porcelain tile collections that offer contrasting hues in warm tones to support wayfinding in senior living environments. Mainstreet, Color Blox 2.0, Argent, Notorious,  Shades 2.0,   Owen Stone, Stone Fiction, and Portugal  are just a few of our porcelain tile collections that would be excellent choices for both floors and walls in senior living. These porcelain tile collections come in various sizes and hues and can be arranged in many patterns to create additional navigational cues.

Our Owen Stone, Portugal, and Stone Fiction porcelain tile collections have a  textured finish designed for exterior walking surfaces in residential and commercial environments.These porcelain pavers are so suitable for indoor use in areas where enhanced traction is desired. 

Crossville Porcelain Panels for Wayfinding

Crossville Porcelain Tile Panels by Laminam® are also excellent surfacing choices to enhance wayfinding in commercial multi-living environments. The collections and colors of the porcelain panels can be mixed and matched to provide the desired contrast and directional cues needed for navigation. As an added bonus, porcelain panels provide unparalleled surface protection to walls in corridors and elevator banks prone to wheelchair and other equipment abuse. Neither paint nor wallpaper offers the longevity, durability, and ease of cleaning and maintenance that the porcelain panels provide. Porcelain panels are also a boon to remodeling because of the possibility of tile over tile installations, which eliminate demolition, reduce labor, contain costs, and minimize construction waste.  See all our porcelain panel collections here.

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