Schiphol airport in Amsterdam is one of the few airports that have really designed their signage thoughtfully. One of the practical ways to help travelers is to give them a good sense of time. It’s all about time… Let’s face it, when you have to change gates, unless you’ve done this before, you really don’t have a clue how long it will take to get there where you are to the next gate. At Schiphol, you will notice a small pedestrian icon with timing inside the gate letter to show how long it will take to get there from that point. So for instance, if I wanted to get to gate G, it will take me between 9 and 12 minutes to get there. If I have a flight to catch in 8 minutes, you can make a decision on whether you want to give it a run or not. This is huge! I love the simplicity of “embedding” the time inside the actual gate letter so that you can process the information in one single glance. Kudos to the information designer Paul Mijksenaar.
