Oakdale Mall
I’m considering my local mall at Christmas time because malls and Christmas
shopping go hand-in-hand. The Oakdale Mall sits
on a small hill and the exits are well marked.
Each entrance has a directory map that tells each store location. The whole mall is decorated for Christmas, as
is each store. There is also a celebration of Hanukah. The celebration of Festival of Lights began
last Saturday night by lighting the first candle of the Menorah.
There are always displays in the center court. At Christmas there is Santa doing photos with
families and friends. Christmas trees
are decorated by different organizations, by Girls Scouts and Boy Scouts, or
the local animal shelter. The trees
serve two purposes, one is to obviously promote the organization that did the
decorating and the other is to promote the stores that supplied the
decorations. There is usually an educational component, but
the shopper must shift gears to read the educational information.
The store windows tell a story of what is available inside the store. Toys or books or shoes or sweaters or
hairstyles, the store window is your first invitation to come in the store and
look around.
Retail stores have to make it comfortable for a man to shop for a woman;
and a toy store will have the newest products at eye level. According the text Chandler Screven’s claims
that Gibson and Gibson’s research shows “design… needs to be pretested and
adjusted during the planning stage to improve the possibility that they
encourage… selective attention.” (C.G Screvens, 2000, p. 142)
Companies who design malls know all about aesthetics. The aisles are wide and open, with seating
through the middle to accommodate weary shoppers. There is plenty of lighting, the temperature
is comfortable, and there are a variety of stores situated throughout the mall.
I can plan my shopping trip online before leaving the house by using the
malls web site. This helps me to park in
a more convenient place.
The space is well planned; it’s easy to navigate from store to store. There is plenty of room, the displays are
appropriate for the size of the space.
Even during the Christmas rush, there is enough room for everyone to
move through the mall with arm loads of packages.
I honestly could not find an area
for improvement in the design of the mall.
There is a variety of stores, there are many stores, there is plenty of
room to move around and easy to navigate your way around, and there is lots of
seating and not mention restrooms available. Also, there are a variety of food
places to choose from. My local mall is
well cared for: there is very little garbage; there are security and maintenance
people who keep everything neat and orderly.
Reference:
Jacobson, R. (2000). Information Design. Massachusetts: MIT Press. Print.
Your post was filled with really good information on shopping malls! The way a mall is laid out is truly an art. In order to arrange all of the stores to make shopper's have an easy experience and all the stores have shop appeal is a hard thing to accomplish.
ReplyDeleteIf you look at the different malls each is slightly designed differently, but strategically. One thing I notice is that the movie theaters are always near restaurants. This is convenient because if people want to catch dinner and a movie they can with ease!
I thought about the way Crossgates and Colonie Center are set up and their differences. I personally think that Colonie Center's new design is executed very well compared to that of Crossgates. Colonie Center uses neutral tones and has simple clean lines. The atmosphere is much more calming with the nice neutral tile flooring and organization of the stores. However Crossgates is jammed packed with tons of booths and stores along with dull colors. This mix adds a confusing element to the mix and makes a shopping experience overwhelming at times!
Also when you were speaking about Christmas decorations there is something funny about it. Often times the use of the Christmas decorations is more of a sales ploy rather then just something nice to put up. Working in sales I know that when it starts to snow or people put up decorations it gets people in the Christmas spirit. When people are in the Christmas spirit they tend to shop, which is good for sales! Therefore a lot of the time stores will get up Christmas decorations as soon as possible to push holiday shopping early.
Great job analyzing all the aspects of mall design. You really demonstrated an understanding of how the use of information design is crucial. One recommendation I would give to malls is to supply more bathrooms! It always seems they are never where you need them!
This post is certainly timely, although I felt it lacking in hard, contextual evidence of the design principles we have learned through the course. You make good points about the design of the mall aisles and strategic seating, but this seems discoordinate from information design, focusing instead on architectural or industrial interior design. Now, if there was a commentary on the placing of *ads* near seating locations, this would apply greatly to this class' content as the height, placement, and message to a particular subset of audience (your "weary shopper") would be an interesting case study.
ReplyDeleteI would have liked to have seen a condensed topic list. From maps to shopping to Santa, the depth of exploration on one facet of the mall was sacrificed for a cursory narrative on many. Mall mapping is something we have learned about in this class, and so I feel that a more focused exploration/comparison on how this mall's mapping system applied or failed to apply current information design trends could have been a very compelling topic.