Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Good signages to show directions

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Good signages to show directions

It is important to provide good signages to help people to find their way. In recent years, there is too much focus on getting revenue for advertisements that result in signages being hidden or difficult to find. Here are some examples:

1. Whole buses are now being painted as a moving advertisement. It is difficult for the commuter to know if it is a public bus.
2. There are many advertisements in MRT stations and bus interchanges that the essential signages, such as EXIT and PLATFORM number, are difficult to find.
3. Even gantry gates of car parks are being converted into advertisements for property agencies.

When I visit an unfamiliar place, I have a lot of difficulty to find the way due to poor signages, but I get distracted by many advertisements.

There has to be a balance between the desire for advertising revenue and the need to give property signages and instructions to commuters. I hope that the regulatory authority comes into the picture. If the transport operators are restricted in their advertisements, it will create opportunity for other media, such as the newspapers and the television. This may be better for all.

Tan Kin Lian

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: REX comments as follows,

YES!! I have many frustrations with signages in Singapore. Actually I wanted to make video's of the bad signages on YouTube to make everyone laugh at how silly the designers are, when it is ready i will inform you. Here are at least 5:

1. In AMK hub, as you enter from the HDB central main entrance near macdonald, you see escalators and a signboard saying Hypermarket B1. You take the escalator or the lift, down to B1 but you arrive at a dead end space with an exit to hot stuffy carpark. Where is the NTUC supermarket as indicated in the signboard? (answer : walk 400m across the hot stuffy carpark on B1 - no helping signs to show the way). The lift landing signboard on Level stubbornly says Hypermart B1. It took me a long time to figure out the best way to get to the NTUC hypermart.

2. You want to go to "East Wing Toa Payoh hub". You drive down the carpark and all you see is signboard To Auditorium, to Biz1 To Biz2. You have no idea where is East Wing!! At another corner there is an EXIT plate pointing left. But on the left is a wall facing the office doors. It took me a while to figure out EXIT is for pedestrians, WAYOUT is for cars. Is this standard?

3. You drive on PIE towards KPE. The gantry signboard says "Sims Ave". You have to follow that first to get to ECP!! But ECP is a bigger road, why point to Sims Av first before pointing to ECP!! It is quite a bit later that they split the gantry pointers to show Sims Ave AND ECP. ECP and Sims av should have both been indicated in the first gantry!!

4. Woodlands Ave 2 is a major road leading to Republic Poly. You are on Seletar Expressway. You see a small left board-sign saying woodland Ave 2 is straigh ahead, maybe next turn or so. So you keep left watch out for the turn. Then you come to a huge gantry saying ONLY Woodlands Av 12 and Johor!! So you panick and get into Av 12, bec you thought if you miss this there is no more Av 2 you end up to Johor. But in fact if you didnt panic, the next gantry says Woodlands Av 2 and Johor!! The first gantry should have said Av12 left turn, Av2 and Johor straight on!!! Because Av 2 is such a major road, they cannot ommit it from the Gantry signage!!!

5. Sengkang is madness. There are signboards that say to Punggol Road and you turn and find that you go to the wrong side of Punggol road to the sea, not the side that bring you back to Upper Serangoon road. They should state clearly (Pungol road which direction!)

I can't blame my wife for getting stuck for 3 hours two years ago almost end up in Johor when she drove alone at night.

rex; April 15, 2010 1:06 PM
Anonymous said...: Even people who are well educated had problems. I wonder how those un-educated people copes. Not to step out of the house?; April 16, 2010 11:08 AM
A Singaporean said...: I agree that poor signage and having too much advertisements are not good for people needing to find directions. Some of them are very small, and some of them are missing important directions. These should be improved.

However, I also suggest that we also train ourselves not to get too distracted by large advertisements, because I don't think this situation is going to go away in the short term. Personally, I find the signage in many buildings and MRT stations not too bad in giving directions. The important thing to note that is that they usually use consistent colours, fonts, and symbols. For example, LTA standardized MRT signage to use dark green background, white non-serif font, and various symbols enclosed in white squares. On the other hand, advertisements do not come in standardized formats. If we train ourselves to identify such characteristics, then the signage isn't too difficult to find.; April 19, 2010 2:51 PM