How to Make ADA Signs
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was born out of the Civil Rights Act of the 1960s. The act makes the federal government responsible to make federal spaces available to all Americans, even those with disabilities. The ADA comes out with a set of guidelines that deems things ADA “compliant” or designed in such a way that it is accessible to most, if not all. The ADA has information about how to make signs ADA compliant.
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Instructions
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Measure the characters on your sign to be ADA compliant. This means that letters and numbers should “have a width-to-height ratio between 3:5 and 1:1 and a stroke-width-to-height ratio between 1:5 and 1:10” according to the ADA. The height of the characters depends on how far the person reading the flier will be from the flier. It should appear at least 3 inches from the closest point of viewing.
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Pick a font that is easy to read. A simple serif font that is non-decorative works. Do not use any condensed or decorative typeface. The font should be of a medium-weight and neither bold or thin. For informational signs, upper and lower case letters are preferable.
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Print your sign on a matte, non-glare background. The only exception to this is if the sign is a traffic sign. The background should contrasts with the color of the characters. This means if you have dark letters, your background should be light, while if your characters are light, your background should be dark.
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Make sure any raised braille, letters or pictograms are ADA compliant. This means that any letters or numbers should be raised from the sign by no more than 1/32nd of an inch and written in an upper-case, sans-serif or simple-serif font. Raised letters should be accompanied with Grade 2 Braille. Any raised characters must be at a minimum 5/8ths of an inch, but no more than two inches tall. Finally, pictograms, such as a wheelchair to imply wheelchair accessibility, must have a verbal description placed below it.
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Hang your sign in an ADA compliant spot. If you are identifying a room with a sign, hang it on the latch-side of the door. The latch-side is the pull-side of a swinging door. If there is no room on the door, you should hang it on the wall immediately next to the latch-side. Signs should be 60 inches from the floor to the center of the sign. The ADA says that the sign should be such that anyone within three inches of the door should not come into contact with any protruding pieces of the sign.
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