Storefronts and public facilities have a legal and ethical responsibility to post compliant wayfinding signs and graphics throughout their buildings. Wayfinding signage provides directional information to the guests, employees, disabled people, and anyone else who may not be familiar with your building or where essential rooms are located inside it.

Here are the top 5 things your wayfinding signs and graphics should accomplish to become fully compliant.

1) Clear and Understandable Signage

The Disability Discrimination Act wants wayfinding signage and graphics to be easy to read and understand, especially for disabled people. They recommend having contrasting colours in the signage design to make the signs easy to spot. The signage should also have braille and other tactile features to accommodate the blind.

Post the signage at a reasonable height for people to see and touch without any problems. A seeing person should look at your signage and immediately understand the wayfinding messaging conveyed. A blind person should be able to feel the braille elements and understand them as well.

In addition, try to stay consistent with the colours and fonts on the signage used throughout your facility. The design consistency indicates to people that they are within the same facility and not somewhere else unknown.

Check the DDA website to learn more about their requirements and recommendations regarding wayfinding signage in public facilities. Then you can make sure your facility’s signage is in complete compliance with DDA policies.

2) Give Directions to the Bathrooms

Public facilities must have bathrooms for men and women to use. Everyone experiences a call of nature at one time or another. They need to know a nearby bathroom is available to feel comfortable and unembarrassed in your facility. So make sure you have clear wayfinding signage to point people in the direction of the nearest public bathrooms available.

Bathroom signage is known for its blue background and white text font and designs. Since people immediately associate these colours with bathroom signage, it won’t take them long to recognise the messaging of this particular wayfinding signage. Therefore, we recommend you choose the same colours for your bathroom signage too.

3) Point Out Hazardous or Dangerous Areas

Public safety should be a key priority for any property owner or manager. You are responsible for ensuring the personal safety of everyone who lawfully steps foot onto your property, especially if it has hazardous areas. Failing to warn people of potential hazards could result in a lawsuit or worse if they get hurt on your property.

Hazard signs typically have a yellow background and black text font. Most people already associate these colours with warning signs, caution signs, and hazard signs because they are standard colours used for this type of signage. So it won’t take long for those colours to capture people’s attention.

Graphics are good to use because they can clearly illustrate the kind of danger involved in a particular area of your building. Some examples of hazardous areas include construction sites, wet flooring, laboratories, waste processing, industrial facilities, etc.

4) Highlight the Important Rooms and Areas

Every facility has rooms with different levels of importance. Your job is to show people where the essential rooms are located, such as the cafeteria, emergency storage rooms, kitchens, classrooms, medical rooms, etc.

Imagine a visitor coming to your facility for the first time and not knowing where anything is located. You’ll want to have all the necessary wayfinding signage posted to ensure that your visitors can find their way to any room or area of your facility without asking for directions.

5) Mark the Path to the Exits Clearly

Every public facility must have emergency exits in case of a fire, water leak, or some other emergency on the property. Furthermore, you must have exit signage posted throughout the facility, so people can quickly figure out the direction of the nearest exit. That way, you can have a safe and orderly evacuation without people tumbling or stampeding over each other.

Emergency exit signage doesn’t necessarily need specific colours, but we recommend a red background and white text font. Red is a popular colour used on most emergency exit signage, so people may recognise it in your facility faster if an emergency evacuation occurs.

Contact Us

Do you need high-quality wayfinding signs and graphics custom-designed for your facility? Hardy Signs can offer you high-quality custom wayfinding signs and graphics which are fully compliant with UK laws and regulations.

Contact us at +44 (0) 1283 569 102 to learn more about our affordable and professional wayfinding signage design services.