Improving Accessibility

Source: https://en.nagoya-u.ac.jp/about/commitments/accessibility/ Parent: https://en.nagoya-u.ac.jp/about/

Summary

Nagoya University (“the University”) hereby establishes basic policies for planning regarding the standardization of the design of signs (“sign-planning”) within the University, to encourage its further internationalization and transformation into a university open to the community and to ensure that its campuses are user- and visitor-friendly and easy to get around for everyone, including the elderly and the disabled.

Basic policies

Basic policy 1: Clear- and easy-to-understand system with hierarchical structures

Build a clear system to guide visitors

Create a clear system to guide visitors with signs that show appropriate information in appropriate locations, with a clear hierarchy in the displayed content, so that visitors to the University can get around with ease.

Establish design guidelines

To maintain consistency in the sign system on the overall campus, establish design guidelines for signs, such as allowable fonts, colors, dimensions, materials, formats, finishing, etc.

Unify information

Match up various media and unify the electronic information online, particularly on the websites of the University and its organizations.

Basic policy 2: Universal design that welcomes various types of visitors and campus users

Improve accessibility

Use sign-planning that is easy to understand and easily accessible to people who visit the campus.

Support internationalization

Japanese and English should always be listed together on all sign displays, and a design shall be used that takes internationalization into account, such as using pictograms or graphics that are based on international standards.

Use universal design

Use a universal design that can be used by anyone, taking the height of disabled people and the disabilities of people with poor vision or partial color blindness, etc. into account.

Include safety considerations

Sign-planning must take safety into consideration, including markings for evacuation routes in the event of a disaster in lecture halls and other venues where potentially large numbers of unidentified people are assembled.

Basic policy 3: Design in harmony with the expression of the University’s identity

Express the University’s identity

Clearly include the Nagoya University logo in NU green, the color of the University’s UI, with the aim of creating a design that expresses the University’s identity.

Evoke harmony with the environment

Minimize signs that contain text or graphics as much as possible, in order to harmonize with the environment and make full use of the features of the campus environment.

Facilitate updates

Employ a design that is easy to update as a long-term, sustainable sign system, by establishing a guideline for managing sign-planning, including what to do when a new sign is needed, when an old sign needs to be updated, when maintenance is needed on an existing sign or when an existing sign needs to be removed.