ADA signage requirements

Most of the confusion about ADA signage comes from one misunderstanding: people assume every sign in the building has to carry braille. It does not.

The 2010 ADA Standards split signs into two groups with very different rules, and knowing which group a sign belongs to answers most of the questions that come up during a fit-out. This page covers that split, the numbers that go with it, and the part of a signage scheme the rules do not protect.

This is a plain-English summary of the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design, section 703, written for facilities and project teams. It is not legal advice, and a sign fabricator or accessibility consultant should confirm anything you are about to install.

What is ADA signage?

ADA signage is signage that meets the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which in practice means section 703 of the 2010 Standards for Accessible Design.

Section 703 does not treat all signs alike. Signs that identify a permanent room or space carry the strict requirements: raised characters, braille, specific sizes and a specific mounting position. Signs that give direction or information carry a much lighter set of visual requirements and need no braille at all.

That distinction is doing most of the work. A restroom sign and a corridor arrow are governed by different rules even when they are made by the same supplier on the same day.

Which signs must comply, and how

Work out which category a sign falls into before asking anything else about it.

• Permanent room and space identification. Restrooms, stairs, exits, room numbers, anything naming a space that will not change. These need raised characters and braille, plus the visual requirements.
• Directional and informational signs. Corridor arrows, overhead signs, directories. These must meet the visual character requirements only. No raised characters, no braille.
• Signs for spaces that change. An office with a changing occupant, a meeting room renamed between tenants. Generally treated as not permanent, so the tactile rules do not apply.
• Building directories and temporary signage. Directories are informational, and signs up for less than seven days are exempt.

Raised characters, braille and character height

These apply to permanent room identification signs. The numbers are specific and they are the ones most often got wrong.

Mounting height and location

A compliant sign in the wrong place is not compliant, and this is the item most often missed on site rather than in the drawing.

Tactile signs mount with the baseline of the lowest character at least 48 inches above the finished floor, and the baseline of the highest character no more than 60 inches above it. They go on the latch side of the door. Where there is no wall on the latch side, such as a double door, the sign goes on the nearest adjacent wall.

There must also be a clear floor space of at least 18 by 18 inches, centred on the tactile characters, positioned so that somebody reading the sign by touch is not standing in the swing of the door.

Contrast, finish and legibility

These apply to both categories, and they are the requirements that make signs better for everyone rather than only for people covered by the standard.

Characters must contrast with their background, either light on dark or dark on light. The standard states the principle rather than a percentage, though a 70 percent light reflectance difference is the figure most specifiers work to. Both characters and background must have a non-glare finish, which rules out the polished acrylic that looks best in a brochure.

For visual signs, required character height rises with viewing distance and with how high the sign is mounted. A sign read from across a lobby needs considerably larger text than one beside a door, and section 703.5 sets that out as a table worth having open when you specify overhead signage.

The International Symbol of Accessibility

The symbol is required where it identifies accessible elements: accessible entrances where not all entrances are accessible, accessible toilets where not all are, and accessible parking spaces.

It is not required on every accessible element in a fully accessible building. If every entrance is accessible, none of them needs the symbol. The symbol exists to distinguish, so where there is nothing to distinguish it adds noise.

What ADA does not require, and where buildings go wrong anyway

Here is the gap worth understanding, because it is where accessibility quietly fails in buildings that passed inspection.

Directional signs and directories are largely exempt from the tactile and braille rules. That is a sensible exemption, since braille on an overhead sign nobody can reach would help nobody. But it means the signs carrying the information most likely to change are also the signs with the fewest rules attached, and nothing in the standard obliges anyone to keep them accurate.

So a building can be fully compliant and still fail a visitor. The restroom sign is perfect. The directory in the lobby lists a department that moved two floors up last year, and the step-free route to it now runs through a different lift that no sign mentions. Compliance covered the plaque and said nothing about the information.

Accessible route information is the clearest example. Which entrance is step free, which lift reaches the basement, where the accessible toilet on this floor actually is. That information changes with every refurbishment and it is almost never on a sign that gets updated.

Keeping accessible route information current

The tactile signs are a job for a sign fabricator, and they should be. Raised characters, braille and mounting heights are physical requirements that software has no part in, and nothing here is a substitute for them.

The part software can own is the layer the standard leaves loose: the directory, the department names, the accessible route. QRCodeMaps holds those as markers on your floor plan, so a step-free route or a relocated clinic is an edit rather than a re-fabrication, and a visitor who scans the code beside a sign gets what is true today.

Because it opens in the phone browser it also inherits the phone's own accessibility settings, including the screen reader and text sizing the visitor already uses. For the digital side of accessibility, including WCAG, see accessible indoor navigation. Plans start from $99 a month with a free trial.