Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
A human-centred approach to visitor flow analysis
Very many thanks to you and your team for all your work over the past few months: in the planning, the data collection, the report writing and in today's presentation. It has been a pleasure to work with such a professional, competent and pleasant team…we're very pleased we chose Mima!
The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) is one of the world’s leading scientific botanic gardens, holding knowledge gained over centuries that the world needs today. The John Hope Gateway (JHG) is the primary entrance and welcome area to RBGE’s flagship site: the Edinburgh garden. The JHG includes facilities such as toilets, café, shop, a visitor information point, permanent and temporary exhibition spaces and a classroom area. Approximately 550,000 visitors pass through the JHG every year, about 62% of all visitors to the garden. Visitor flow within the JHG is complicated and both circulation and orientation are confusing for visitors. Therefore RBGE sought to understand how, but more importantly why, visitors moved through the JHG in order to optimise the flow and enhance the overall visitor experience. RBGE commissioned Mima for our human-centred approach to visitor flow analysis. Mima was able to gain a deep understanding of the behaviours, motivations, and experiences of visitors within the JHG in order to make pragmatic suggestions to better meet the needs and preferences of its visitors.
Our Task
Our task was to gain deep insights into how and why visitors moved through the space; their behaviour patterns, typical journeys and challenges they faced; and any opportunities for improving their experience. To do this Mima employed various methods including visitor observations, surveys and interviews to analyse visitor behaviour, motivations, and journeys within the JHG. Visitor flows and behaviours were observed on different days of the week during school holidays and term time. The Mima team asked visitors to report their journeys through a survey (available in digital and paper formats), and conducted in-depth face-to-face interviews with a wide range of visitors. We observed over 200 visitor flows and interviewed a diverse range of visitors, including families, visitors with accessibility needs, older visitors, tourists and local residents. These enabled the Mima team to build a rich understanding of the visitors, their pain points, motivations for visiting the JHG and their desired experience. Mima also conducted a signage and accessibility audit and compared the JHG space against best practices in wayfinding and accessibility.
Our Solution
To enhance visitor flow and overall experience at the JHG, Mima provided solutions to improve wayfinding and accessibility, enhance the entrance, optimise the classroom, cafe and exhibition spaces. The solutions were pragmatic and intended to align with RBGE's goals, and cater to their diverse visitor interests and needs in order to create a more seamless and enjoyable visitor experience. These included suggestions for redesigning the cafe space to minimise bottlenecks, relocating orientation signage, and improving accessibility and inclusivity by increasing seating and signposting of the accessibility offer.
