Wander through the Hortus, Leiden with us…

In late May, we attended the opening of the Hortus Leiden’s new Mediterranean garden! It was a beautiful evening with speeches and a live planting of a fig tree by austronaut André Kuipers.

Subsequently, we encountered our latest wayfinding, freshly installed and ready to enhance the experience for all visitors. Since kicking off in 2021, this project has been our designer Roos’ “favourite project by far!” Roos has a great passion for plants and nature, and became deeply engrossed in this project.

After many user tests, Roos designed wayfinding from the perspective of our Orientation, Navigation, and Experience strategy by:

• establishing a clear route, making sure everything was as accessible as possible to differently abled visitors
• creating a complete journey with a clear entry and exits, equipped with information nudges and confirmation at decision points
• addressing FOMO: people missing out on crucial exhibitions by highlighting them
• giving visitors the option to follow the route, or to choose the ‘wander’ option with an exploration feature
• specifying secondary paths, so the user can be more independent and not feel intimidated with how to get back to the main path
• creating an informational hierarchy to show different plants when they’re at their best
• designing beautiful wayfinding poles and signs with information that was legible and at eye-level
• enhancing the identity and house style of the Hortus Botanicus

We are so excited to have seen it come to life, and we hope you too will discover the Hortus through the seasons!

Full story coming soon 🌾 🍂 🌿 🪹 🪴 🍃 🪺