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Cross-Cultural Evacuation Signage Framework A Research-Based Method for Evaluating and Redesigning Tsunami Evacuation Signage Applied to the Yuigahama–Hasedera Evacuation Corridor
The proposed signage system translates those criteria into coordinated hazard, route, and destination markers. Simplified pictograms reduce dependence on written language, while multilingual text, direction, distance, and refuge information make each action more explicit. A progressive color sequence moves from yellow and black at the hazard zone, to blue along the active evacuation route, and finally to green at the designated refuge. This continuity allows the environment itself to communicate danger, movement, progress, and confirmed safety.
The evaluation framework identifies five conditions that influence whether an evacuation sign can be understood and acted upon across cultural boundaries: semiotic comprehensibility, affective register, cross-cultural pictogram performance, environmental integration, and linguistic accessibility. Together, these criteria examine not only what information a sign contains, but whether it communicates urgency, remains visible in context, and gives an unfamiliar user enough information to take protective action.
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