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Making your business accessible to as many people as possible is the law. Specifically, it’s the Equality Act 2010. Furthermore, accessibility is good business practice. It can enhance your public image and lead to more sales. Using the right business signage can significantly improve your business’ overall accessibility. Here, Judson Signs provides a quick guide to what you need to know.
Your legal responsibilities
In simple terms, businesses are forbidden from discriminating against people on the basis of nine protected criteria. One of them is disability. This discrimination does not need to be active. In fact, these days it rarely is. It can be indirect discrimination. Essentially, this means that a decision has the unintended consequence of causing discrimination.
For practical purposes, this means that businesses need to check proactively to ensure that people with disabilities can make full use of their facilities/services. If something is preventing them from doing so, a business needs to address it if reasonably possible.
What is considered reasonably possible depends very much on context. For example, businesses might not be able to equip older buildings with modern mobility aids. By contrast, all businesses will be expected to implement affordable and effective solutions such as signage.
The business case for accessibility
From a purely business perspective, there are two main reasons for emphasising accessibility. The first is that it tends to enhance your overall public image. Modern customers are increasingly looking for signs that businesses are truly inclusive. Ensuring that your business is accessible to people with disabilities is a part of that.
The second is that accessibility increases your business’ reach. Quite simply, you need to engage with prospects to stand a chance of converting them into paying customers. The more prospects you can bring to the top of your sales funnel, the more are likely to reach the bottom.
It’s also worth noting that steps you take to improve the customer experience for disabled people often also improve the customer experience for people in general. For example, accessible signage is easier for everyone to read.
The basics of accessible signage
Here is a quick guide to what you need to think about when ordering accessible signage. Paying attention to these points will help ensure that your sign can be understood by people with visual, physical and cognitive disabilities.
Large text
In general, you should be looking at a minimum of an 18-point font. Bigger is better.
Simple font
Elaborate lettering can look beautiful in the right situation but business signage isn’t it. Use a simple font with no serifs (bars on letters) and certainly no italics. Try to avoid underlining. Bold is usually fine.
If you were planning to use more elaborate letters as part of your aesthetics, try a different approach. For example, if you wanted to create a luxurious appearance, use rich colours.
Normal capitalisation
In general, it’s best to avoid using all capitals in words. This comes across as shouting on signage just as it does in other contexts. Use either regular sentence case or title case.
Appropriate use of colour
Make sure there is a strong contrast between communication elements (text and graphics) and their background. Use matt colours. Gloss colours can easily become reflective. This can make it harder to read the sign.
Be very careful about relying on colour to convey information. Remember some people are colour-blind. Even people who can perceive colour may find it difficult to perceive gradients of it.
Use graphics wherever possible
Using graphics can help people who struggle to read text.
Add tactile elements
For example, include braille and/or raised/embossed lettering.
Consider using QR codes for extra functionality
You could use QR codes to direct people to an audio version of your sign.
Make sure the sign is sited appropriately
The sign needs to be well lit and the space in front of it should be clear. The sign should also be visible to people both standing and sitting (and people with dwarfism). If this can’t be achieved with one sign, you may need to have duplicate signs.
Author: This article is written by Malcolm Judson, Managing Director of Judson Signs, specialists in sign making for vehicles, schools and commercial and retail spaces.
