Output details

Legible London: Inclusivity Report

This reports the findings from a study of how people with disabilities use London’s pedestrian wayfinding scheme. The research, which included user forums and extensive consultations with national disability organisations, generated original outputs informing the development of recommendations for making the Legible London scheme fully inclusive.

The researcher carried out the audits, planned and facilitated the user consultations, reviewed best practice guidance, wrote the report (for Applied Information Group) and presented it to Transport for London. This work is publicly available via Transport for London’s website and Legible London has its own micro site where all the research, the strategy documents and the Inclusivity Report can be accessed.

The research identified the problems people with a variety of disabilities experience when using signage and mapping in cities generally. The focus of the work was for the development of Legible London signs and maps. This led to design recommendations for producing signage and mapping to make them as accessible and inclusive as possible, including exploring audio formats, digital versions and smartphone apps that allow users to select their own content. The researcher developed an audio version of the signage for the pilot scheme as a result of findings from this research.

Previously there was very limited relevant research published about designing maps and how people with disabilities find their way through cities. As a direct result of this work wayfinding systems in other cities, including Leeds, Glasgow, Vancouver and Brighton, are more accessible.

At the Society of Environmental Graphic Design’s Honor Award in 2010 the jury wrote “A state-of-the-art wayfinding strategy, rigorous research, and robust hardware incorporates both traditional and digital methods for encouraging fine-grain explorations of a very complex city...”

The work was funded by Transport for London, the Mayor of London’s office and the GLA.