The legibility and conspicuity of emergency escape route signage for people with visual impairments

Abstract

Prior to this study very little research had been carried out which looked at ways to improve the communication of emergency escape route information with respect to building users who are visually impaired. However, this area is critically important; building users need to have adequate means of escape made available to them. Previous studies mainly involved fully sighted people, while one study that did look at the performance of emergency escape route signs (EERS) with respect to visually impaired people only dealt with non-visual methods of communicating information. As a result, this previous research has limitations when applied to a wider range of building users. The study reported in this paper comprised a literature review, a testing stage and a report. Twenty-four people, with a range of visual impairments, took part in the study, with each person looking at 12 emergency signs under both normal and emergency lighting conditions. These signs incorporated a variety of designs and technologies, the details of which will be discussed in the paper. The results showed that only certain types of EERS currently used in the UK are useful to a wide range of people with visual impairments. The conclusions of this study recommend that new standards need to be considered to include the types of signs that performed well in this study.