Corbin Design Teams Up with Hablamos Juntos to Create a Universal Language for Signage
For many of us, a trip to the doctor or hospital can be stressful. It’s even more nerve-racking if you can’t find where you need to go. Add an inability to understand the signs, and the stress levels increase tenfold. It’s a problem faced by hundreds – if not thousands – of people with limited English language skills. To help this ever-growing segment of the population, Corbin Design has collaborated with Hablamos Juntos and the Society of Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD) to implement strategies using universal symbols for health at four volunteer health care institutions.
Translated into English, hablamos juntos means “we speak together.” The program, made possible through funds provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is dedicated to developing practical tools to overcome language barriers to health care. A key initiative is exploring the potential of using graphic symbols for wayfinding in health facilities that serve linguistically diverse users.
“Wayfinding is direction for people in motion,” said Mark VanderKlipp, Corbin Design president. “It’s far more than just signage, maps and words– wayfinding ties together verbal and visual cues during a visitor’s journey. Used correctly, it can be a universal language in itself.”
Building upon the legacy of the original 28 internationally recognized health care symbols, in August of 2008, four design schools (California Polytechnic State University, Iowa State University, Kent State University and the University of Cincinnati) formed a consortium to study the communicative values of graphic symbols as part of wayfinding programs. From that, the group was able to expand the list to the 54 symbols* utilized in the trial implementation currently underway at the four so-called innovator facilities: Women and Infants Hospital (Providence, RI), International Community Health Services (Seattle), Children’s Mercy Hospital (Kansas City, MO) and Grady Health System (Atlanta).
Extensive research and observation was conducted long before any signs were hung, as VanderKlipp and Corbin Design research leader Woody Smith traveled to each campus to conduct pre-audit assessments to document baseline of existing signage, making assessments and evaluations based upon existing challenges and future opportunities. Corbin then worked with designers at each facility to develop proposed signage solutions and supported and conducted post-audit assessments, and from that, standards were developed and integrated into designs specific to each facility. The evaluations at each site included prototype testing using the symbols to determine communicative effectiveness across groups of patients coming from extremely diverse linguistic backgrounds, including English, Spanish, Khmer, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Somali and Korean.
“The testing phase revealed something we didn’t anticipate,” said VanderKlipp. “Even those who were capable of reading and understanding the written signage gravitated towards the symbols. It’s logic certainly worthy of applying to other wayfinding tools as well, regardless of language, literacy or physical limitations.”
“Imagine what is must be like for visitors with limited English skills to visit a health facility under stressful conditions,” suggests Yolanda Partida, director of Hablamos Juntos. “Working with these four health facilities, Corbin has helped demonstrate how using universal symbols as signage program elements can proactively create environments to meet the needs of their linguistically diverse communities.”
Click here to see the symbols: http://www.hablamosjuntos.org/signage/PDF/SymbolPoster_Sep10.pdf
People get lost. We fix that.
Corbin Design has been helping people find their way since 1976. The Traverse City, Mich.-based graphic design firm is a leader in wayfinding and environmental graphic design, working with a wide variety of clients to improve the way people access places and information. Corbin’s team of designers and project managers have completed hundreds of projects throughout North America in the fields of wayfinding analysis and signage system design for more than 50 cities and towns, 70 medical centers, 25 colleges and universities and other corporate, hospitality and entertainment clients. Several Corbin staffers are active members of the Society for Environmental Graphic Design; company president Mark VanderKlipp currently serves on the national board. Corbin is the proud recipient of numerous wayfinding awards, in addition to being featured in publications including Architectural Record, Healthcare Design, Identity and Nation’s Cities Weekly. For more information, visit www.corbindesign.com or call (800) 968-1236.
Hablamos Juntos
Hablamos Juntos was established in 2001 as a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation® (RWJF) to develop practical solutions to language barriers in health care. Administered by the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) Fresno Medical Education Program, the three areas of focus for Hablamos Juntos are interpreter services, translation of written materials and signage. Supported by two phases of grant funding, “Hablamos Juntos: Signs That Work,” an ongoing partnership with the Society for Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD), explores the potential of and promotes the adoption of universal symbols in health facilities that serve diverse public users who have low literacy and limited English proficiency.
Society for Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD)
The SEGD is the global community of people working at the intersection of communication design and the built environment. Through university-level educational curriculum, professional development workshops, publications and research initiatives, SEGD’s mission is to provide educational resources to designers, fabricators and users of visual communication in the built environment.
