Monday, March 4, 2019

Good signage in national parks can save lives. Here’s how to do it right

Outdoor recreation inherently comes with risk but there are ways to reduce it without wrapping people up in cotton wool.
One of the simplest ways is to critically examine the way we design safety signs to ensure that visitors actually read them, connect with the message, and accept that this warning does really apply to them.
http://www.safetysignsforsale.co.za/warning-signs
http://www.safetysignsforsale.co.za/warning-signs
To be effective a sign should, among other things:
  • be easy to notice
  • be easy to understand
  • use colours that stand out from the background
  • include languages other than English
  • include graphics and the traditional “no” symbol of a red circle with a line through it
  • avoid crowding too many messages into one spot.
Thinking carefully about how we design signs to get safety messages across effectively is an important part of managing risk in national parks and natural areas generally.
Safety signage will be more effective if embedded in a coordinated risk-management system.
Activities in nature will always carry some risks and some people will choose to engage in unsafe activities despite knowing better. Accidents will continue to occur.
That said, our best practice principles for signage help park managers to do the best they can to make visitors fully aware of the risks while preserving the integrity of the natural site.

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