Emergency signage is designed to be understood instantly in a crisis. But […]
Emergency signage is designed to be understood instantly in a crisis. But research shows that even well-designed signs are often overlooked – which is pointing at a new generation of dynamic and intelligent evacuation systems.
The alarm goes off in the middle of the night. There is smoke in the corridor. Somewhere ahead, a green exit sign is supposed to guide people to safety.
Emergency signage is designed for exactly that situation: Helping people find the fastest and safest way out under pressure. But making a sign work in a real emergency turns out to be more complicated than simply drawing a running figure and an arrow.
Danish designer Ole Søndergaard has spent decades refining pictograms, road signs and public safety symbols designed to be understood instantly. According to him, good safety signage starts with clarity – but it must also encourage people to act.
“It has to be read right away. I try to remove as much ‘noise’ as possible, so only the essential figure remains. But it must not become so simplified that people stop understanding it,” says Ole Søndergaard.
The running figure in an exit sign signals movement. The arrow communicates direction. Together, they tell people both what to do and where to go.
Colours also play a central role: Green signals safe escape routes, while red communicates warning, prohibition or fire equipment.
Much of modern safety signage is shaped by international standards intended to work across languages and cultures.
“You cannot invent something completely different. If somebody from Japan, China or anywhere else sees the sign, they must understand it immediately,” says Ole Søndergaard.
Why people still miss the signs
However, according to Professor Ed Galea from the University of Greenwich, a fire safety engineer specialising in evacuation behaviour, wayfinding and evacuation modelling, correct design alone is not enough. Even perfectly understandable signs can fail if people simply do not notice them.
Part of the problem is physical. Based on experimental research into emergency sign visibility, Ed Galea found that viewing angle plays a far greater role than earlier regulations assumed.
“The regulations assumed visibility was independent of viewing angle, but that’s simply not how human vision works. You may technically be within the required viewing distance, but if you approach the sign from the wrong angle, you may not be able to see it at all,” says Ed Gelea.
Placement and size also matter. According to Ed Galea, signs are often mounted too high above eye level – and exactly where smoke accumulates first during a fire.
“In a fire, the first thing you lose is the signage near the ceiling,” he says.
Some international hotels already use signage both at eye level and close to the floor to improve visibility during smoke-filled evacuations. But many signs are simply also too small. According to Ed Galea, architects often see emergency signs as visually intrusive and therefore opt for the minimum permitted size – making the signs easier to ignore in an emergency.
After the Düsseldorf Airport fire in 1996, Ed Galea recommended significantly larger emergency signs in airports. Later, several German airports adopted much larger signage systems to improve visibility.
Learned irrelevance
But physical visibility is only part of the explanation. Ed Galea’s research also points to a psychological phenomenon he calls ‘learned irrelevance’.
“We see emergency exit signs every day of our lives, but normally we never use them. So the brain learns that the information is irrelevant and gradually stops registering the signs consciously,” says Ed Galea.
That became particularly clear during Ed Galea’s research into the evacuation of the World Trade Center after 9/11. While interviewing survivors, he repeatedly heard accounts of people walking straight past emergency exits without noticing them.
Later experiments showed the same pattern. Even when emergency exit signs were placed directly in front of participants at corridor intersections, most participants failed to notice them at all.
“But if people did see the sign, they followed it. That told us something important: The problem is often not comprehension, but getting people to actually notice the sign,” says Ed Galea.
From static signs to dynamic guidance
That insight became the basis for Ed Galea’s work on dynamic signage systems designed to make emergency signs more visible and responsive during emergencies. The concept uses LED lights integrated into the arrow itself, creating a directional movement effect that draws people’s attention towards the exit route.
“The beauty of the concept is that it is intuitive. People immediately understand what the moving arrow means. You do not need to train them,” says Ed Galea.
The system can also deactivate unsafe routes using a large red cross over the sign, allowing evacuation routes to change dynamically during fires, terrorist attacks or other emergencies where a normal escape route may no longer be safe.
“Standard signs are ‘dumb’. They always point in the same direction, even if that direction is no longer safe,” says Ed Galea.
According to him, dynamic signage can help guide people away from danger and redistribute evacuation flows in real time – particularly in large and complex buildings such as airports, underground stations, shopping centres and high-rise buildings.
At the same time, he stresses that dynamic signage is not automatically better simply because it is dynamic. Some concepts tested during his research created confusion rather than clarity. One system used flashing ‘NO EXIT’ signs, but participants interpreted the flashing as a malfunction instead of a warning.
Today, several companies are selling dynamic signage systems commercially, although they are still not part of standard building requirements.
The future of evacuation
Ed Galea believes evacuation guidance may soon move far beyond physical signage altogether.
In the near future, he envisions smart buildings connected to real-time evacuation software, sensors and personalised wayfinding systems.
Instead of following fixed signs, occupants could potentially receive individual evacuation guidance through smart glasses with heads-up displays that take into account the location of the fire, crowd density, blocked routes and even the physical capabilities of individual occupants.
“It will know if you are elderly, disabled or able-bodied. And it could guide different people along different evacuation routes,” says Ed Galea.
For now, however, the basic challenge remains unchanged: creating signage that people not only understand but actually notice and react to when it matters most.
“If people are in doubt, the sign has failed,” says Ole Søndergaard.
Safety signage from DBI
Correct signage is a legal requirement in many buildings and workplaces and according to both designer Ole Søndergaard and Professor Ed Galea, signage only works if it is clear, visible and immediately understandable.
At DBI’s webshop companies can buy a wide range of standardised safety signage within fire and security, including:
DBI’s signs are available in different sizes and materials and are continuously updated to comply with DS/EN ISO 7010 standards.
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