Signage is a visual communication system that helps people to find their way around a facility, park, or other public space. It can also communicate rules, encourage learning experiences, and create a sense of place or community by incorporating historical or cultural details.
Decisions about signage systems should be based on the goals of the facility, the kinds of information that need to be conveyed, and the types of users who are likely to use it. A good signage system will be flexible enough to change as the needs and interests of the place evolve. For more information visit this site https://www.sanantoniosignsandwraps.com/.
For example, in a traffic study of 12 locations in a residential neighborhood, a sign that indicated that a manoeuvre was illegal was effective in changing behavior to avoid conflicts between drivers and pedestrians. Another study found that signs that emphasized speed restrictions were effective in increasing safety belt usage, and a sign that prompted recycling was effective in reducing the number of deer-vehicle collisions.
In a similar study of a university campus, signage that urged people to turn off taps or lights was successful in increasing usage and decreasing water waste. In other studies, a sign that encouraged the use of trash bags was effective in increasing litter pickup.
Often, sign systems target well-learned behaviors that most people are familiar with. This may mean that a sign receiver already has access to the relevant action representation in his or her mind and does not need additional prompting to activate it at a certain time in the context of a sign.
Legibility of signs is a major concern for those who are responsible for establishing or maintaining a signage system. Research has shown that sign legibility varies widely depending on the size of letters and the type of materials used in the construction. Larger letter heights require more space than smaller ones and should be positioned above the road surface in order to be legible, with letters that are closer to the roadway having the highest level of legibility.
The amount of space between a word’s letters is important for legibility in the context of signage, according to a 2005 Transportation Research Board annual meeting paper. Reducing the space between a word’s characters improved the legibility of typefaces in standard type widths, but decreased it for narrower fonts.
It’s a good idea to limit the height of the letters in a sign, so that they occupy no more than 40% of the space available on the sign. This can help reduce the cost of the sign and increase its visibility.
A 2005 study of light-emitting diode changeable message signs found that, compared to fixed message signs with the same number of LED letters, a sign that was only half as high had a legibility distance of 228 feet in the daytime and 114 feet at night.
This is in contrast to traffic signs, which are designed for daytime visibility and need a higher level of legibility than fixed message signs do. For example, a 30 mph speed limit sign must have 10-in. letters, and a 55 mph speed limit sign must have 15-in. letters to be legible at these speeds.