摘要
Taiwan had officially entered aging society in 1993, and meantime the birthrate reaches its lowest point again and again. The constitution of population dramatically turns into an elder and low-birthrate society. Therefore, the ratio of elders living along is increasing yearly. When the elders need to deal the illness and go to hospital along, decays come from degeneration might have affect on their activity in accessible environment in hospital. Signs is a vital tool for delivering and communicating information in the road sign system. Whether the elders can identify the signs in hospital clearly becomes an important issue in the current research. To understand the affect of signs design in hospital to elders, the research reviewed and gained insight of degeneration in both physical and psychological of elders and the proper principal of signs design for elders. The research surveys in Taipei City, which has densest medical center, and mainly focus on National Taiwan University College of Medicine, which has hundred years of history （founded in 1895）. The research conducts field survey in both old and new buildings of National Taiwan University College of Medicine in August, 2015. The survey includes five types of signs design： Public Facilities, Prohibition, Safety, Warning, and Commercial Facilities. The result from article review indicates the most salient psychological degenerations includes the change in cognitive function, decay of memory, and deceleration of information processing; physical degenerations includes the decay of vision. As a result, the following properties should be taken into consideration when designing sings for elders： （1） The proper ratio of graphic and text. （2） Avoid using colors or matches difficult to identify by elders, like purple, blue, and green. （3） Take the visibility, legibility, identity, attention, and memory into consideration, there should be 70% differentiation in contrast between text of sign and background. （4） Avoid using multi-meaning graphic, keep the design simple. The result from the survey of National Yaiwan University College of Medicine indicates： （1） Using mainly on graphic and text as subsidiary, part of the sign design using both Chinese and English, and make sure the appropriateness of ratio between graphic and text. Use more of sans-serif font, which has better legibility. （2） Match the color mainly as yellow background with black graphic, blue background with white graphic, white background with black graphic, white background with blue graphic, a strong contrast between background and graphic on brightness and chroma matches the principle of visibility, legibility, and identity. （3） Simplify the signs design may safeguard its visibility. When elder need to handle illness comes from degeneration alone and go to large and complex hospitals frequently, the decay of their mental and physical might have a huge negative affect. Therefore, the signs design in hospital should understand their properties and design signs that match their requirement, to safeguard their live independency.
