Recognizability of Pictograms for Building Fire Evacuation

Abstract

AbstractEach year, major building fires occur in every corner of the world and cause severe casualties, forcing governments worldwide to reflect on and inspect fire evacuation plans. Although numerous products have been created to facilitate fire evacuation procedures, the situation varies in each fire disaster. Therefore, it is imperative to provide information tailored to the immediate conditions to rapidly and appropriately guide evacuees in making decisions. On the basis of experts’ suggestions and users’ evacuation needs, this study summarized 13 fire evacuation decision-making points. The information that people require the most during a fire evacuation is “the exit locations” and “the standard evacuation procedure”. Through a survey on the recognizability of pictograms, we found the following visual features with highly evaluation: (1) large and simple images; (2) with a sense of space and situational scenes; (3) indicator arrow can express the sense of speed; (4) the escape action of the humanoid symbol has a higher evaluation than the simple arrow indication; (5) white images on a black background. Results of this study, an effective pictogram design system was developed to provide users with efficient fire evacuation guidance. In the future, the on-site experiments and design of dynamic pictogram signage with color will be developed with this research results.KeywordsPictogramRecognizabilityEmergency evacuation routeBuilding fireGuide sign