Abstract

In a previous paper titled, The Taxonomy of Urgent Wayfinding, twelve evacuation maps used in the United States were assessed by the following criteria: components (external and internal identification, level of organization, and length of components); variables (size, value, texture, color, orientation, and shape variation); and the general rules of legibility (graphic density, angular legibility and retinal legibility) as defined in the Semiology of Graphics by Jacques Bertin (1983). The influential effect of mental health and physical stress was also identified as key components in decision-making and wayfinding design for urgent and emergency situations. A unifying, consistent or cohesive set of design principles within which the maps were created could not be established, neither by the taxonomy or strategies of the maps’ graphic variables, components and rules of legibility. This paper continues the analysis of artifacts created for people in urgent and emergency situations. The following considerations will be included: 1) the psychologyof emergency egress and ingress, crowd psychology, the unconscious personality, andleader influence; 2) visual literacy and cognition; 3) survey of graphic variables; 4) brief reviewof semantics and the advantages of text; and 5) strategies in instructional and documentdesign. The objective in examining airline safety cards is to explore a model of design principles that include the consideration of human cognition and regulated content applicable to urgent and emergency reading situations by a single authoritative body. Evacuation orders, evacuation maps and airline safetyinstructions share commonalities in the behavior and psychology of its intended readers as well astheir shared messages. The conclusion of this paper will be one of the supporting references used in developing performance tasks and conductinga benchmark of evacuation documents currentlygiven to residentswhen asked to evacuate their home. Even though differences in spatiallimitations and relationships between an aircraft and residential evacuation are exceptional,foundational principles in creating instructional directives for a passenger are applicable toinstructional directives for a resident. Both events acquire a human cognition of urgencyand/or emergency and the message is the same—to safely evacuate.