Some fields of design have clearly defined accessibility guidelines, such as the web content accessibility guidelines. We have the Sign Design Guide. This was published by the Sign Design Society twenty years ago and is still much in demand and widely cited as a standard for inclusive wayfinding design. However, the landscape of inclusive design has developed since the guide was published. The guide contains much information about how to design for vision impairment in wayfinding design, but less discussion about some of the other dimensions of inclusion outlined above.
The Sign Design Society has started work on producing a new edition of the Sign Design Guide. We plan to update it to include the latest thinking, research, and practice in terms of inclusive design for wayfinding.
At present (as of spring ’21) we’re hoping to be able to have the new edition published in two years’ time. We’d like your help in producing the new edition, and there are several ways that you can help:
- Sponsorship: at present our work is unfunded. If anyone is interested in providing sponsorship it would help us immensely in terms of how much we can do and fast we can do it. And, of course, sponsorship will be acknowledged in the new edition.
- Case studies: if you have worked on any projects with particular inclusive aspects, then we’d like to hear from you with a view to including your project as a case study in the new guide.
- Experts: if you have worked with issues of inclusion, or you know someone who has, even if the title ‘expert’ seems too grand, then please get in touch. We’d like to talk to you so that we can enrich the guide with your expertise and insight. We’d also like some of these people to act as reviewers, to read a draft of the guide (when we’ve got a draft), and tell us where and how it could be improved.
- Steering: we’re also looking to put together an editorial group who can spare some time to shape the overall guide and steer the process of getting it written.
If there is any other way that you can contribute to the new edition of the Sign Design Guide, then please get in touch.