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How can we improve it?

I understand that the whole intention of these new Wayfinding system is to make wayfinding, well, easier. But how much simpler can these signs go?

As quoted by the designer himself, he said:

“It means that our redesign, in this instance, has failed, because people can’t even see the signage hanging up there above,” said Lim, who works at the Land Transport Authority (LTA), a government agency that oversees the signage system of Singapore’s Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system.

In my opinion, while it is true that it somehow failed, to salvage them is actually possible. Believe it or not, it just needed something. Yep, it's text. To dive in deeper, let's take a look at the different parts the new Wayfinding system did wrong.

Part 1: Wayfinding Iconographies

Let's take a look at Fig. 6. What do these icons mean to an average person, who may not understand what these were supposed to depict? In addition, would a tourist immediately know what is TEL, NEL etc?

I applaud the small effort of text in the icons, later added on the signages for Bus Interchanges (mainly Woodlands ITH, and the new Tampines North Bus Int), but it is not enough.

Part 2: Exit Directories

I have arrived at my station. Where to, next? This is where the Exit Directories come in. However, the current implementation only has Exit Directories at the Concourse, while the ones at the Platforms only as the 'Way out' icon.

Some of you may think, "Nah that is not necessary. Just get to the top and find out. Well, you'll be greeted with these at Upper Thomson MRT station (Fig. 8 & 9). Turns out you do need them huh?

So why not solve these once and for all - Bring the Exit Directories to the Platforms too. But before doing that, the Exit Directory list itself needs some minor tweaking too. This is how the current Exit Directories look (Fig. 10). As seen here, the Exit Numbers are all not in order, as it is sorted according to the place's Alphabetical Order.

As a user myself, if I'm too lazy to use Google Maps, or when I forget to bring my Mobile Devices (sometimes it happens), I would refer to the Exit Directories. You can’t deny that using Google Maps would be faster and easier, because I won't even need to check the Directories as it quickly tells me which Exits to take (Fig. 11). As you can also see, both the Exit Directory and Google Maps could not agree on which Exits to take, but that is a different story for another day.

But if you were to actually refer to the Exit Directories, the list is currently is very overwhelming to see - well, probably because it was arranged in alphabetical order. In my opinion, I would prefer the lists to be arranged in Exit Number/Letter order.
You can see how I'd envision it to be improved, in the Solutions section, below.

Part 3: Consistencies, as a whole

Consistencies is a key to good design system. The current signage design is almost there, but some parts are not consistent. A most notalbe examples is the Exit Letters/Numbers. TEL uses Numbers (Exit 1,2,3 etc), while the rest still uses Letters. Rales Place particularly, began the changeout to the new current signage design, but retained the Exit Letters. This may confuse some people, but I also understood why it was done. Change to numbers - may confuse existing people using the exits, retain the letters, while i minimises confusion, may lead to inconsistencies. In my opinion, they SHOULD change to numbers, and the LTA should also start consolidating exits to make it simpler.

Some stations, take Tampines, for example, uses the slightly older signage design language, along with the current signage design's fonts. One would think that they would've picked a new design language, and then apply it islandwide, but that does not seem to be the case.