Show me the way

There are a lot of things different when driving in France. You drive on the wrong side of the road, you need to carry loads of stuff you wouldn’t normally consider essential (reflective vests, spare bulbs, warning triangles), and every distance and speed limit is displayed in kilometres. None of this is a major issue as you get used to it very quickly. The major problem when driving in a strange environment comes when you want to know where you are and where you’re going.

France, unlike the UK, uses uppercase for the copy on most of its road signs. This sounds a little trivial but when travelling at 130kph it is anything but.

Uppercase or block capitals are aptly named. From a distance, individual letters merge into one solid block of black. This invariably results in me spending more time looking at the sign, trying to figure out what it says, than at the road which is probably not a good idea.

In the UK we use the ‘Transport’ font, which always presents place names in mixed case on all road signs. Especially designed in the mid-sixties, not because it’s aesthetically pleasing (although it is quite neat) but because it proved to be the most efficient and effective way of getting information across to people travelling at speed.

The same holds true for pages on any website. Too often companies feel that displaying copy in capitals makes their point more important and increases visibility. In fact, it accomplishes the exact opposite by making it harder for the user to read and therefore easier to gloss over when quickly scanning a page.

Therefore the golden rules are as follows:

• If you want consumers to pick up on an important message on your site it’s essential to ensure that it is presented clearly and legibly, and
• When driving in France always take a TomTom with you.

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