Making your business accessible to customers with eyesight problems is not a matter of choice but a law requirement. The Disability Discrimination Act requires that every facility—public or private—promote equal access to persons with disabilities. Therefore, labelling public spaces in your store, office, or service establishment with braille signage must comply. However, compliance does not mean that you should settle for drab one-size-fits-all braille displays. Instead, you should opt for custom braille signs that meet regulatory guidelines and provide a competitive edge.

This article highlights tips for choosing and designing braille tactile signs.

Achieve Shadow Beauty with Raised Lettering

The primary objective of complaint braille signs is to present practical guiding information to visually impaired customers. However, did you know that you can combine braille dots with lettering on the same sign? The strategy offers an opportunity for businesses to play around with the lettering to achieve maximum aesthetic value. You can accomplish this by adding dimensional letters with colour contrast on a frosted vinyl panel. Combining braille dots with raised lettering and pictures produces a functional sign and board that adds pizzazz to your business.

Invisible Braille Dots

When ordering compliant braille signs, you must ensure that the dots' spacing and height meet the specifications set by law. It ensures that visually impaired persons can feel and make sense of the wording. However, there is no law requiring the braille dots to fall under any colour contrast category. It gives you room to play around with whichever colour you want for your braille signs. A popular trend that most businesses follow today is to blend braille dots with the background colour. It creates an invisible effect, enhancing the clean lines that heighten the signs' aesthetic look. The customization is beneficial for the modern office environment where chrome, glass, and marble are central to the ambience.

Full-Color Logo

Many business owners believe that they cannot add their colourful logos on braille signs for fear of breaching the colour contrast rule. However, nothing could be further from the truth because the misconception lies in misunderstanding the applicable law. Ideally, a braille sign must feature a minimum 30% luminance contrast between the graphics and the background. You can still be compliant by presenting your corporate logo as a side image with subdued colour tones.

A safer approach is to emboss your logo behind a partially frosted vinyl. However, you will not achieve crisp lines and accurate colours. Nonetheless, you can benefit from the branding while remaining compliant.