A Study on the Comparison of Impressions of Tourist Information Signs Focusing on the Differences between National Languages in Japanese Regional Cities

Abstract

From the perspective of universal design, signs should be easy to understand for all users. In Japan, tourist information signs have become increasingly multilingual in recent years as the number of tourists from other countries has increased. However, it is not clear whether the current signs are comprehensible to both Japanese and non-Japanese speakers. In this study, field and questionnaire surveys on signs were conducted in Matsue City, a regional city in Japan, and the evaluations of Japanese and non-Japanese speakers were compared. In the field survey, a caption evaluation method was used to evaluate the visual environment, and in the questionnaire survey, the SD method was used to evaluate the signs obtained in the field survey. The results indicated that non-Japanese speakers were more likely to focus on signs, and signs with diagrams and maps were evaluated more positively. In addition, the evaluation structure of signs was found to consist of four elements: “Harmonicity”, “Clarity”, “Visibility”, and “Comprehensibility”. “Harmonicity” was indicated to be as important as “Clarity” and “Visibility”. These results suggest that the replacement of text with diagrams on signs contributes to the improvement of impressions and is particularly effective for non-Japanese speakers.