EFFECTS OF FONT AND CAPITALIZATION ON LEGIBILITY OF GUIDE SIGNS

The research objective was to improve highway guide sign legibility by replacing the 40-year-old guide sign font with a new font called Clearview. It was believed that the current guide sign font's thick stroke design, made with high-brightness materials and displayed to older vehicle operators, exhibited a phenomenon known as irradiation or halation. Irradiation becomes a problem if a stroke is so bright that it visually bleeds into the character's open spaces, creating a blobbing effect that reduces legibility. The Clearview font's wider open spaces allow irradiation without decreasing the distance at which the alphabet is legible. Results are presented of two daytime and two nighttime controlled field experiments that exposed 48 older drivers to high-brightness guide signs displaying either the current or the Clearview font. The clearview font allowed nighttime recognition distances 16% greater than those allowed by the Standard Highway Series E(M) font, without increasing overall sign dimensions.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.3141/1605-09
• Summary URL:
  http://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=EFFECTS+OF+FONT+AND+CAPITALIZATION+ON+LEGIBILITY+OF+GUIDE+SIGNS&author=P.+Garvey&author=M.+Pietrucha&author=D.+Meeker&publication_year=1997
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/isbn/0309061741
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper appears in Transportation Research Record No. 1605, Research on Traffic Control Devices.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Garvey, P M
  • Pietrucha, M T
  • Meeker, D
• Publication Date: 1997

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: p. 73-79
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Record
  • Issue Number: 1605
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0361-1981

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Aged drivers; Brightness; Days; Distance; Field tests; Guide signs; Irradiation; Legibility; Night; Signs; Visual perception
• Old TRIS Terms: Sign font
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00744718
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 0309061741
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Dec 31 1998 12:00AM