Pedestrian

John Peake Knight had an idea to put up a revolving gas-powered lantern with a red and a green light at a busy intersection near London's House of Commons. When it was erected in 1868, it was the first first traffic light. Instead of a police officer needing to stand in the intersection and direct traffic, they could move to the side and just operate the lantern. Eventually, the officer wasn't needed at all.

It was a symbolic system to efficiently communicate with a lot of people . And it seems unsurprising to find out that the first person to think of putting up a pedestrian crossing was railway engineer. Mr. Knight was used to thinking about moving things around a network - in this case people. Today, these symbols are immediately recognizable because of their ubiquity. And the same thing is happenings on the web - we've developed symbolic systems to help people orient themselves online. In building these systems, web developers and interactive designers should keep in mind the history of Wayfinding and allow the way we navigate physical spaces to inform how we navigate these virtual environments.