A Facility Manager's Guide to ADA Signage Requirements

1. Which signs have to comply, and which do not

Almost every costly ADA signage error starts here, before a single dimension is measured. The 2010 ADA Standards do not treat all signs alike. Chapter 2, Section 216 assigns each sign to a category, and the category determines which technical requirements in Section 703 apply to it.

There are three categories plus one exemption. One refinement on top of them: exterior signs that are not located at the door to the space they serve are excused from the raised character requirement (2010 ADA Standards 216.2 Exception). Elevator signs carry their own braille requirements outside Section 216, covered below.

216.2, signs identifying permanent rooms and spaces. The text reads: interior and exterior signs identifying permanent rooms and spaces shall comply with 703.1, 703.2 and 703.5. Section 703.2 governs raised characters, and it cross references 703.3, which is how braille enters the requirement. So a sign in this category carries raised characters, contracted braille and visual legibility.

216.3, directional and informational signs. These need to comply with 703.5 only: visual characters. Raised characters and braille are not required. This is the single most useful sentence in the entire Standard for a facility manager, and it is the one competitors leave out.

216.4, means of egress. Section 216.4.1 covers exit doors: doors at exit passageways, exit discharge and exit stairways shall be identified by tactile signs complying with 703.1, 703.2 and 703.5.

216.1 Exception 3, temporary signs. Temporary signs posted seven days or less are not required to comply with Section 216.

Here is how that sorts the signs in a real building.

Two clarifications on that table. The illuminated overhead exit sign is a different product from the tactile sign at the stairway door. It needs no raised characters or braille, but it is still a visual sign under the ADA Standards, and an exit sign built to your building and fire code will normally satisfy those visual requirements as well (2010 ADA Standards 216.3 and 703.5). And where a sign genuinely straddles two categories, for example a directory panel that also identifies the room it hangs in, the conservative reading is to treat the room identification portion as 216.2. Your authority having jurisdiction makes that call.

2. Raised (tactile) characters

These requirements apply only to signs that are required to have tactile characters in the first place: permanent room and space signs (2010 ADA Standards 216.2), exit door signs (216.4.1), and certain elevator signs such as hoistway floor designations and car controls (407.2.3.1 and 407.4.7.1.3). They are not required on directional signs, informational signs or temporary signs.

The height exception is worth reading twice, because it describes the most common sign in any commercial building: a dual format room sign that carries a raised, braille bearing message and a separate larger visual message. Only that configuration unlocks the 1/2 inch minimum. On a sign with a single character set doing both jobs, 5/8 inch is the floor.

Section 703.2 also sets character proportions and spacing requirements beyond the ones tabled here. We build to that section text and dimension it on the shop drawings rather than reprinting figures on a web page that we have not personally checked against the primary source.

3. Braille

Where braille is required, it must be contracted braille, commonly called Grade 2 (703.3). Uncontracted braille on a room sign is a fabrication error, not a stylistic choice.

Those figures are Table 703.3.1. They are the reason braille is a manufacturing specification rather than a graphic one. Raster braille beads set into a drilled substrate hold these tolerances. Braille that is routed, printed or thermoformed as part of a face very often does not.

Position (703.3.2). Braille is positioned below the corresponding text. Where the text is multi-lined, the braille is placed below the entire text block, not below each individual line. It is separated 3/8 inch (9.5 mm) minimum from any other tactile characters and 3/8 inch minimum from raised borders and decorative elements.

The elevator exception. Braille on elevator car controls needs only 3/16 inch (4.8 mm) minimum separation, and it may be located directly below or adjacent to the corresponding raised characters or symbols. That is a different rule from general signage, and applying the elevator rule to a room sign, or the room sign rule to a car control, is a familiar failure.

4. Mounting height and location

Two things about that table decide most field disputes. First, both height figures are measured to a character baseline, not to the panel. A sign panel centered at 60 inches can put its highest tactile baseline above 60 inches, depending on where the characters sit on the panel, so measure to the baseline of the highest tactile character rather than to the panel center (2010 ADA Standards 703.4.1). Second, at a single door the tactile sign goes on the wall at the latch side, not on the door leaf, unless it sits on the push side of a door with a closer and no hold open device (2010 ADA Standards 703.4.2 Exception). At double doors with one active leaf, it goes on the inactive leaf. A sign on a swinging leaf moves away from the person reading it.

The superseded rule. The 1991 ADAAG 4.30.6 required mounting at 60 inches (1525 mm) above the finish floor to the centerline of the sign, and only for permanent room and space identification signage. It is superseded. The 2010 Standards replaced it with the 48 to 60 inch baseline range at 703.4.1. It still appears in old specifications, old standards manuals and the habits of experienced installers, which is why it belongs in this guide rather than being quietly ignored.

5. Visual characters

The exception for characters that do double duty. Section 703.5 states that where visual characters comply with 703.2 and are accompanied by braille complying with 703.3, those characters are exempt from 703.5.2 through 703.5.9, which includes the Table 703.5.5 viewing distance sizing. On a sign where one set of raised characters also serves as the visual message, those characters are sized by the flat 5/8 inch to 2 inch range in 703.2.5 instead, but on a dual format sign with separate visual characters, the visual characters must still meet 703.5 in full, including Table 703.5.5 (2010 ADA Standards 703.5 Exception, 703.2.5).

In practice: the viewing distance table is for signs that are not tactile. Overhead signs, directories and directionals are sized by it. Room identification signs are not.

6. Pictograms

Where a pictogram is used to designate a permanent interior room or space, such as a restroom, the pictogram field is 6 inches (150 mm) minimum in height with no characters or braille inside it (2010 ADA Standards 703.6.1, 216.2), and a text descriptor is required directly below the field, with the descriptor complying with the raised character, braille and mounting requirements (2010 ADA Standards 703.6.3). Informational pictograms, such as a no smoking symbol, do not need a text descriptor.

The field is the space set aside for the symbol, kept clear of characters and braille, and the 6 inch minimum is the height of that field rather than of the symbol itself (2010 ADA Standards 703.6.1). A small symbol centered in a generous field complies. A small symbol on a short field does not, and squeezing a pictogram onto a standard room plate is the way this gets failed.

7. Illinois

The 2018 Illinois Accessibility Code (71 Ill. Adm. Code 400) is Illinois’s own independent code. It is not a one line adoption of the federal standard by reference. It reprints the technical text and italicizes the passages Illinois changed, which makes the deviations easy to audit.

Section 703 is unmodified. Direct inspection of Appendix A finds no italicized text anywhere in Section 703. Every dimension in this guide is enforced identically in Illinois. There are no Illinois specific character heights, braille dimensions or mounting ranges. If a vendor tells you Illinois requires something dimensionally different for interior signage, ask which italicized passage they are reading.

Section 216 is not. The scoping chapter does carry Illinois specific changes. Section 216.5 Exception 1 is marked deleted in italics, removing a federal parking signage exception, and 216.4.2 and 216.4.3, covering areas of refuge and means of egress directional signage, carry italicized cross references that differ from the federal text. So the dimensions travel unchanged from the federal standard, while a few scoping questions have to be answered out of the Illinois text.

Accessible parking signage is a separate subject. The minimum $250 fine posted on the sign, which municipalities may raise to $350, comes from the Illinois Vehicle Code at 625 ILCS 5/11-1301.3, not from the Accessibility Code. In Illinois, the mounting rule comes from the Illinois Accessibility Code, which changes the federal text: the R7-8 sign goes at the front center of the space, no more than 6 feet from it, with its bottom edge 5 feet minimum and 9 feet maximum above finished grade (2018 Illinois Accessibility Code 502.6), where the federal rule sets only the 60 inch minimum (2010 ADA Standards 502.6). Two different bodies of law on one sign, and neither one governs the interior package this guide covers.

8. How to audit your own building

This takes a tape measure, a phone camera and a floor plan. It is worth doing before anyone else does it for you.

1. Sort before you measure. Walk a floor and mark each sign on the plan as 216.2, 216.3 or 216.4. Most corrections lists shrink at this step, because directional signs stop being measured against tactile rules.
2. Check the exit stairway, exit passageway and exit discharge doors first. These are the tactile exit door signs (2010 ADA Standards 216.4.1), and they are easy to overlook in an existing building.
3. Measure to the baseline. On every tactile sign, measure from the finish floor to the baseline of the lowest character, then to the baseline of the highest. Both must land inside 48 to 60 inches (703.4.1).
4. Look at where the sign is mounted, not just how high. Single door: on the wall at the latch side. Double doors with one active leaf: on the inactive leaf. Double doors with two active leaves: on the wall to the right of the right hand door (2010 ADA Standards 703.4.2). Flag any sign on an active door leaf unless it is on the push side of a door with a closer and no hold open device (703.4.2 Exception).
5. Check braille position. Below the entire text block, with 3/8 inch minimum separation from other tactile elements and from raised borders (703.3.2).
6. Look for gloss. A shiny face fails the non-glare requirement (703.5.1) regardless of how good the color contrast looks.
7. Check the tactile faces for lowercase, for serif type and for italic or decorative type (2010 ADA Standards 703.2.2, 703.2.3). Both are common on signs bought as decor rather than as code items.
8. Photograph every exception you find, with the room number in the frame. A photo log keyed to the floor plan is what turns an audit into a scope of work.

We do this survey as a service across Lake County, and the output is a marked up plan and a message schedule rather than a quote for a pile of signs. The common mistakes page covers what usually turns up.

A plain-English note on how to use this guide

This is a practical summary written for planning purposes, not a legal opinion and not a substitute for the regulation. The controlling documents are the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design and the 2018 Illinois Accessibility Code (71 Ill. Adm. Code 400). Where this page and those documents differ, those documents govern. Your authority having jurisdiction makes the final determination on any specific building, and a plan reviewer or building official can require more than the minimum. Every figure above was checked against the primary text, and figures we could not verify against the primary text are not on this page.