An ADA signage checklist you can walk your building with

This is the walk-through we do when a business asks us to look at their signage. Take a tape measure and go door by door.

Start with which doors need tactile signage at all. Permanent rooms and spaces get it: restrooms, exits, stairwells, and rooms identified by name or number. Temporary or changeable identification, like a name on an office that changes with the occupant, is treated differently.

Measure the mounting height to the baseline of the tactile characters. The requirement lives in a band, not at a single number, and signs installed by eye routinely land above it. This is the single most common finding.

Check the mounting side. The sign goes on the latch side of the door. If the door is double-leaf or the latch-side wall is too narrow, there are specific alternatives, and the nearest adjacent wall is usually the answer.

Check the approach. There has to be clear floor space in front of the sign where a person can stand close enough to read it by touch without standing in the door swing.

Then look at the sign itself: raised characters with braille below them, non-glare finish, and real contrast between characters and background. Brushed metal on brushed metal fails, and so does a glossy plate under a spotlight.

Do not forget the pictograms and the field they sit in, and do not forget directional and informational signs, which have their own character sizing rules based on viewing distance.

If a walk turns up problems, most of them are relocations rather than new signs. Correcting height and side is cheap. Replacing every sign in a building is not, and it is usually not necessary.