As the elderly are vision-impaired, they will meet difficulties when they are in MRT stations, shopping malls and even when they are surfing the internet at home.
I have encountered elderly people who have difficulties reading the signs when they are in the MRT stations and shopping malls. I think one of the reasons is that the words are not vivid or clear enough for them to read and another crucial reason is that most of the elderly do not know English well.
In order to resolve the problem, colours and fonts of the words, location of placing the sign boards and the languages provided should be taken note of.
Colours
The colours should not be low contrasting colours. For instance, the effect of black on purple is low contrasting and this will enhance the difficulty for the elderly to read the signs. Conversely, red on white or black on white is the highest contrast.
Also, we should not put two low contrast colours adjacent to each other. For instance, a red stripe placed beside a green strip is too much of a blur for the eyes and this will impact the effect of vision of anything that is placed in front of these colours.
Fonts
There are many types of fonts and some fonts such as sans serif fonts or monospace fonts will be clearer for the elderly to see. Using serif (e.g. Times New Roman) will be better for reading too.
Languages
As I have mentioned above, Chinese should be included in those important signs at public places.
LOCATIONS
Most sign boards in public places will usually be hung from the top and people are aware of this. In fact, images will help the elderly to understand the sign better too. In addition, in most public places such as shopping malls, the signs are lighted up and which will help to get the elderly's attention.
Lai Ziying
S101
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