ADA Quick Reference Guide

Published On: April 3, 2018Categories: Engraving & Routing Tutorials

Tactile Characters

  1. Extruded Height – Tactile characters shall be raised 1/32 inch (0.8 mm) minimum above the background.
  2. Font and Style – Characters shall be sans serif. Characters shall not be italic, oblique, script, highly decorative, or of other unusual forms.
  3. Case – All tactile signs must be UPPERCASE. Signs that provide direction or information about a functional space and overhead signs may use Upper and Lower Case letters.
  4. Text Height – The uppercase letter “I” shall be used to determine the allowable height of all characters of a font. The allowable height is between 5/8” and 2”.

 

  1. Text Width – The width of the uppercase letter “O” can be 55 percent minimum and 110 percent maximum of the height of the uppercase letter “I”.

 

  1. Text Stroke – Stroke Width shall be 15% or Less of “I” Height.
  2. Character Spacing – Minimum character spacing is 1/8th inch and a maximum of 4 times the character stroke width. The distance is measured between the closest points of each adjacent character.1/16 space with beveled edge

 

 

  1. Finish and Contrast – Characters and their background shall have a non-glare Characters shall contrast with their background with either light characters on a dark background or dark characters on a light background.

Braille Text

  1. Braille Text Placement – shall be separated 3/8 inch (9.5 mm) minimum from any other tactile characters and 3/8 inch (9.5 mm) minimum from raised borders and decorative elements.

 

  1. Dot Base Diameter – Shall be .059” – .063”

 

  1. Dot Height – Shall be .025” – .037”
  2. Braille Bead Distances – USA Grade II Braille shown below. Bead distance varies between US standard and California standard braille

Pictograms – Pictograms shall have a field height of 6 inches (150 mm) minimum. Characters and braille shall not be located in the pictogram field.

Author:
Zachary Houser

 

References:
https://www.ada.gov/regs2010/2010ADAStandards/2010ADAStandards.pdf

http://www.accentsignage.com/wp-content/uploads/ADA-Quick-Reference.pdf

http://www.engraversjournal.com/article.php/2306/

https://www.apcosigns.com/techpdf/ADAHandout.pdf