Evaluation of Bilingual Sign Layout and Information Load before Implementation of New Signing System

Before implementation of a new Parks Canada signing system, a laboratory study was carried out to compare bilingual sign layout options and to assess the relative information load of various sign elements. Participants were given a name or activity destination and shown a sign embedded in a road scene for a brief interval. Participants were asked to recall whether various elements were present on the sign. The key results on sign layout were as follows: on signs with side-by-side arrangement of languages, the primary language should be on the left; horizontal separators between destinations improve performance; vertically stacked arrangement of languages performs better than conventional side-by-side arrangement; placing all arrows on the left side of the sign as opposed to left and forward arrows to the left and right arrows to the right improves performance. Key findings regarding maximum information load were as follows: single-destination name signs performed much better than two- and three-destination signs for layouts with direction arrows, destination names, and activity pictograms. Two-destination signs performed better than three-destination signs for layouts with direction arrows, destination names, and distances. Regarding relative information load of sign elements, a name pair should be considered to have the same information load as a single activity pictogram, and a distance element has less information load than an activity pictogram.