A research project consisting of 23 participants, generating 150 qualitative data points to address a core tension: how do we strengthen navigation without compromising a video rental store’s atmosphere? 33 notes flagged issues with signage, genre designation, and discovery. Solutions focus on adding and improving signage to stand out amongst the visual noise and within We Luv Video.

We Luv Video is a membership-based, volunteer-run nonprofit in Austin, Texas, focused on preserving and promoting appreciation for film and physical media. It is a revival of the beloved Austin cultural touchstone I Luv Video, complete with the original inventory, which closed during the pandemic after nearly 40 years of business.

We Luv Video opened in 2023, in a part of Austin that remains untouched by the development boom of the last 10 years. It is a haven for all lovers of film, from auteur aficionados to cult-film junkies, and for anyone nostalgic for video-store culture, whether they lived through that time or not.

There’s a hidden treasure, DIY atmosphere that the volunteers and members have come to love. It holds a special place in so many people’s hearts — a portal to an era thought long gone, full of film memorabilia, including posters, laser discs, and a life-size figure of Michael Myers that lounges in the center of the store. Walking through the store’s aisles can be an uplifting experience worth the membership fees and volunteer time.

When I’m not exploring redesign opportunities at We Luv Video, I volunteer as a clerk. Clerks are responsible for helping members find movies and shelving returns. The most common issues I encounter during a shift:

• Trouble distinguishing where a genre/sub-genre ends and another begins
  
• Locating titles that break from the genre organizational layout
  
• Understanding that We Luv Video operates as a video-rental store
  

The inventory team does a good job with genre designations. They’ve created sub-genres for superheroes, zombies, Japanese horror, stand-up comedy, James Bond, and documentary by topic. This makes locating titles like Batman, 28 Days Later, or Man on Wire much easier. However, I still get asked to help members find titles in these subgenres, and sometimes I struggle to distinguish the beginning of one subgenre from the ending of another.

I mostly help members find titles that break from the genre organizational layout. Typically, these titles can be found in the often-rotated “Staff Picks” or on the “Directors’ Wall.”

At least once a shift, someone new to the store will assume they can purchase a movie or a stack of movies. Sometimes these folks will sign up for a membership after I pitch the way We Luv Video operates as for rent only; often they do not, as they are just passing through. This happens so much that a co-worker will ask anyone browsing with a stack of movies if they’re a member.

After getting lost and asking for help, I thought, “Surely there are other volunteers who get lost, right?” I decided to investigate if my co-volunteers and members encounter any friction while navigating the store.

• What do members and volunteers think about the signage and wayfinding?
  
• How do volunteers update signage?
  
• How do volunteers help members locate desired items, sections, and/or store features?
  
• How do members and volunteers describe the store’s atmosphere, and does the signage reflect that?
  

I wanted to consider the atmosphere of We Luv Video and how the community feels about it. I was concerned that if the store took on a more corporate feel, the magic might wear off.

How do we create effective signage without interfering with WLV’s current aesthetics?

I created two separate surveys for volunteers and members. The volunteer survey focused on the challenges clerks face when assisting members and frequently asked questions, while the member survey focused on solo navigation. In both, I asked how each party would describe the atmosphere or identity of We Luv Video. The member survey was promoted in-store via a QR code and on We Luv Video’s Instagram account.

Screenshots from both surveys

The surveys were live for 2 weeks. 23 participants responded, some in great detail. In total, I had 150 notes of qualitative data — the passion from the community found its way into the survey. The first phase of this project was a success.

Synthesizing qualitative data into user insights

Of the 23 participants, the majority had joined within six months of when the survey was conducted. Most members visit the store between twice a month and once a week and have no to moderate difficulty navigating the store. Additionally, many members are interested in discovering movies new to them through staff recommendations and by exploring the store.

I compiled all the qualitative data onto a digital whiteboard (FigJam) for affinity mapping. AI would have been a great co-researcher, but I was not yet confident in using that tool. I organized the data into 24 topics, such as “I want to know how to buy this,” “when shelves move,” “I can’t find this section,” “other ways to locate,” etc. Then I grouped those into 5 themes: location signage, designation information, discovery, FAQs, and atmosphere. From these themes, the insights appeared.

1. Current signage cannot be relied upon to assist in navigation.
2. Volunteers and members are not always confident when locating desired titles.
3. Members appreciate the opportunity and hope to discover something new for themselves.
4. Newcomers to WLV often don't realize that titles are for rent only, and explaining our operations requires some effort.

Most interesting, although 15 of the 23 participants reported no to moderate difficulty navigating the store, the qualitative data suggested otherwise. There were 33 key feedback notes (from volunteers and members) regarding location, designation signage, and discovery, proving that metrics can sometimes be misleading.

• “I have to search multiple sections to locate 1 movie.”
  
• “hanging the genre signs from the ceiling like grocery stores do, because people are used to that sort of signage”
  
• “it’s helpful once you’re in front of the shelf, not a hindrance but it would nice if someone could see the section names from the entrance area”
  
• “When searching for a desired title, I’m not sure where I should start, director’s wall, staff picks, or in it’s section, or when a staff pick returns to the rest of the collection.”
  

Blue = volunteers; orange = members

We Luv Video’s current signage does not effectively assist members and volunteers in navigating the store due to its inconsistencies in presentation and placement, as well as its failure to guide to themed and display shelves.

How might we strengthen members’ and volunteers’ ability to navigate We Luv Video, WITHOUT compromising the atmosphere?

Insight 1: Current signage cannot be relied upon to assist navigation.

As previously mentioned, We Luv Video is a collection of film memorabilia. For better or worse, this adds a layer of visual noise. Thus, the signage must pop while maintaining the overall character of the space.

Signage Hierarchy
Main genre signage should hang from the ceiling, with a letter height of at least 3 inches, and be visible from the front of the store. The general rule for letter height is that every 1 inch of height should provide 10 feet of readability. To help the signs stand out in the store, I tried a color-coding system. However, assigning 15 genres their own color is challenging, as there are only 8 to 10 distinctive color options.

I moved to an iconography route, but then thought allowing volunteers to include an image from their favorite film, representative of that genre, could be fun and consistent with the atmosphere.

The smaller sub-genre signage used in international and documentary-by-topic designations should be 1 inch tall. Currently, they are ½ inch.

How the subgenre signs are not meeting letter-height standards according to this letter-visibility chart from thevisualpro.com.

Insight 2: Volunteers and members are not always confident when locating desired titles.

Film nerds love to talk about their favorite directors and movies, and We Luv Video is no different. The store has a large section of shelves organized by renowned directors. There’s also a section for the staff’s favorite films. These movies cannot be found anywhere else in the store. One of the most common pieces of feedback involves searching for a title in its expected genre, only to learn it’s displayed on the directors’ wall or among the staff picks.

Directions to the Directors
Each section of shelves should list popular titles expected in its alphabetical proximity, but are actually shelved under their directors or staff picks. For example, “Looking for Who Framed Roger Rabbit? See Zemeckis on the Director’s Wall.”

Since the staff picks and themed shelves are frequently updated, we can use a similar tactic but leave enough blank space for shift leads to write the movie title and their name with a dry-erase marker. These signs can be smaller and displayed from underneath the exact, would-be location of the staff pick.

All of this smaller signage should include QR codes linking to the collection on the WLV website, so that members and volunteers can quickly and independently locate titles.

Insight 3: Members appreciate the opportunity and hope to discover something new for themselves.

The original I Luv Video staff would tape fun reviews onto the movie cases. They helped shape the I Luv Video identity and can still be found at We Luv Video today. The staff picks and directors’ wall are doing most of the heavy lifting on this front, but we should continue the tradition by adding our own. A majority of the volunteers are already doing this digitally on Letterboxd; transferring those reviews and comments to a physical form would be a cinch.

Insight 4: Newcomers to WLV often don’t realize that titles are for rent only, and explaining our operations requires some effort.

There are several instances of people, excited by the assortment of movies, asking, “What is this place?” While the volunteers love to talk about We Luv Video and how it operates, the spiel can be a little long, and after MANY deliveries during a shift, it can be tiring.

This is the only signage that communicates what We Luv Video is and how it works.

Signage that briefly explains the rental operation, the price of the first-tier membership, and a QR code to sign up should be placed in strategic spots throughout the store.

A first draft of the membership sign. Determining where to post these signs is still in progress.

Optional goal: How do we make the front door more intuitive to use?

I received only one note about the front door, but I couldn’t ignore the challenge it presented. “We have signs literally everywhere saying PUSH, and folks just don’t read it. I hope you can dream up some things to message better!”

At one point, everyone has experienced some confusion when opening the front door at We Luv. There are two doors with flat metal plates to push on. However, one has an after-hours movie return slot just above its plate that never opens, and the other has a ring above its plate that helps the door fully close for lock-up at night. The return slot and ring, both crucial to the business, offer non-functional affordances that completely negate the metal plates’ purpose. Some people think the doors are locked; some take a moment to read the multiple signs that say “PUSH”; and all of them feel embarrassed after figuring it out.

The ring and the return slot still throw me off when I approach the door.

This problem is straight from Don Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things. This isn’t a signage problem, but a mental model problem. Everyone knows how a door works, so no one bothers to read signs explaining the contradictory affordances. The problem is the door, not the messaging.

The best thing to do is to remove these extra affordances. To solve the purpose of the ring, the doors should swing outwards, and door handles should be mounted in place of the push-plates. The vertical return slot should be horizontal in the middle of the door, away from the handles.

When We Luv Video opened, the layout was a bit different; the previously mentioned subgenres were not part of the organization, the clerks’ station was two foldable tables put together, and there were fewer shelves, volunteers, and movies.

Since then, we’ve reorganized the genres and created helpful sub-genres, built a desk with shelves to improve operations, added more inventory shelving, recruited more volunteers, and have 120,000 titles, with more added every day.

While I’m not part of the inventory team, and the organizational layout was out of scope, this project still felt akin to a redesign of a digital product’s information architecture and visual design. The structure was there, but how do stakeholders move through it? How do they know where they are within the structure? How do they locate what they’re looking for?

What I hope to provide with this project is clear access points and improved findability of the store. We Luv Video might be quirky, but unnecessary friction to navigating the store should not be one of our quirks.