Facility Signage and Wayfinding Planning Checklist

Drive and then walk the route a visitor would take from the nearest main road, noting every point at which you would have to guess which way to go.

The route is obvious to everybody who already knows it, which is why the group is the worst judge of its own signage.

Note what the site is called on the map applications people actually use, and whether that name matches what is written on the gate.

Visitors follow the name in an application to a point that may not be the entrance, and nobody in the group ever sees that happen.

Note where a vehicle can turn round after overshooting the entrance, and whether that space is on land the facility controls.

Overshooting drivers turn in the nearest opening, which is usually a driveway belonging to a neighbour and the source of an early complaint.

Note the last point at which the entrance is still visible from the approach, and whether anything hides it once hedges and trees are in leaf.

Sight of an entrance changes completely between seasons, and signage decided in winter fails in summer.

Ask somebody who has never visited to find the facility unaided, and write down exactly where they went wrong.

One person attempting the journey tells you more than any amount of discussion among people who know the way.

Note where the entrance sits in relation to a school entrance, a neighbouring business or another club, and what a visitor could confuse it with.

Most wrong arrivals are at a plausible neighbouring entrance rather than at nothing at all.

Write down every name the facility is known by, including the one on the gate, the one in the booking system and the one local people use.

Names accumulate through funding rounds and committee changes, and nobody notices they now conflict.

Decide one name for each space and use it consistently in bookings, on signs and on any plan of the site.

A user given one name in a booking and shown another at the gate assumes they are in the wrong place.

Decide how individual courts, pitches or rooms are identified, and check the identifier can be seen from inside each one as well as from the entrance.

Identifiers are fixed where an organiser can see them and not where a user standing in the space can.

Note where a name changes as you move through the site, such as a store known by one name to the group and another to hirers.

Divergent names are invisible internally and cause real confusion for anybody being directed by telephone.

Note whether any name is attached to a funder, a family or a dedication, and record who agreed it and on what basis.

Naming and dedication attached to an award are settled by the body that made it, not by the group that received it.

Record who has authority to change a name, so that names do not drift quietly with each change of committee.

Renaming is easy and its consequences reach the booking system, the signs and the map entry all at once.

Note every point at which a visitor currently telephones somebody for directions, and treat each one as a place where information is missing.

The calls the secretary receives are a free and accurate survey of where the site fails to explain itself.

Note where deliveries end up when the driver is left to guess, and whether that place is anywhere the group would have chosen.

Delivery drivers make a decision in a few seconds, and where they leave things becomes the habit for everybody afterwards.

Note where people wait when they arrive early, and whether that spot is visible from the entrance or hidden behind a building.

Early arrivals gather wherever there is shelter, which is often somewhere the group would rather they did not.

Note the first point at which a visitor has to choose between two routes on the site, and record what they can actually see at that moment.

Decision points, not distances, are where wayfinding either works or fails.

Note where people arriving on foot, by bicycle and by car separate from one another, and whether the same information serves all of them.

Signage aimed at drivers is often unreadable to somebody walking in from the other direction entirely.

Note which questions are asked repeatedly by users, since each one describes a sign that does not yet exist.

Repeated questions are the cheapest source of signage content and the one groups consistently ignore.

Decide what a user needs to see at the point of use, such as who to contact about a fault and how their booking is identified.

Information at the gate is read once; information at the point of use is read by the person who has the problem.

Decide who the contact for problems is on any sign, and confirm that the route named still reaches somebody who can act.

A contact on a sign becomes the default route for years, so it needs to be a role rather than a person who may move on.

Note what the group currently tells users verbally at every session, since anything repeated that often is a candidate for a sign.

Verbal instruction only reaches the people who turn up when somebody is there to give it.

Decide what is asked of users about locking up, equipment and leaving the site, and keep the wording identical to the booking terms.

Where a sign and the booking terms differ, users follow neither and the group has no clear position.

Note where a sign would have to be read in poor light or in rain, and who would be standing there reading it.

Signs are chosen indoors in good light and then installed where neither of those conditions applies.

Ask the relevant authority and a suitably qualified professional which notices must be displayed here before deciding what else goes on a sign.

Which statutory, safety or warning notices apply to a facility is confirmed with the relevant authority and is never assumed by the operator.

Check the lease or site agreement for anything about signs, boards and what may be fixed to a boundary or a building.

Whether anything may be displayed or fixed under a lease or licence is a question for a suitably qualified adviser to answer.

Check whether a funding award requires acknowledgement on site, and confirm with that body what form it takes and when it may be removed.

What a funding agreement requires is confirmed with the body that made the award and not decided by the operator.

Note any sign a landlord, a school or the local authority has already placed on the site, and record who maintains each one.

A sign belonging to somebody else becomes a problem for the group the moment it falls down or says something out of date.

Note whether a governing body asks affiliated facilities to display anything, and how the group would confirm what applies here.

Anything a governing body asks an affiliated facility to display is confirmed with that body before a sign is ordered.

Note whether consent is needed for a sign at this location, and confirm locally what applies before anything is ordered.

Whether a sign needs consent varies by location and must be confirmed with the local authority for this site.

Note any sign left by a group that no longer uses the facility, and establish who is able to remove it.

Orphan signs are read as current information by visitors who have no way of knowing they are out of date.

Note what each sign would be fixed to, whether a fence, a building, a post or a surface, and record what is already fixed to that element.

What may be fixed to a fence, a wall or a structure, and how, is for a suitably qualified professional to establish.

Note what grows in front of each position during the growing season, and who is responsible for cutting it back.

A sign hidden by growth is the most common signage failure and the least likely to be reported by anybody.

Note whether each sign could be reached for cleaning or replacement without equipment or another person.

A sign that needs a ladder to clean will not be cleaned, which decides how it will look once weather and dirt have had their effect.

Note which positions face the sun and which take the weather, and ask the supplier what that means for the sign they are making.

What a sign will withstand in a given position is stated by the supplier or manufacturer, not assumed from other sites.

Note where a sign would sit in the path of mowing, machinery or a gate swinging open, and whether anything else already occupies that line.

Signs in the way of a mower are removed by the mower, and nobody records where the missing one used to be.

Note which signs are intended to be temporary and record when they are meant to come down, since temporary signs become permanent quietly.

Nothing on a site lasts longer than a temporary sign that nobody was made responsible for removing.

Decide who owns the record of signs on the site, including what each one says and exactly where it stands.

Without a record, nobody can answer what the facility currently tells its users, which is the whole point of signage.

Note every sign that carries a telephone number or the name of an individual, since those are the first pieces of information to go out of date.

A number on a sign outlives the person who owned it, and callers assume nobody at the facility cares.

Agree what triggers a review of signs, such as a change of contact, a new access arrangement or a group leaving the facility.

Signs are updated when something forces the question, so it is worth naming the events that should force it.

Photograph each sign in position and keep the photographs with the facility papers alongside the plan.

Photographs make the sign record usable by somebody who has not walked the site, including a new committee.

Note anything written on an existing sign that nobody in the group can now justify, and decide who determines whether it stays.

Inherited wording is repeated on replacement signs indefinitely unless somebody questions it once.

Ask users which signs they have actually read, and treat an unread sign as information the facility has not yet given anybody.

Groups measure signage by what has been installed rather than by what has been read, and only users can tell you the difference.