Investigating the Impact of Interpretive Signs at Neighborhood Natural Areas

Abstract

Designing interpretive signs for community natural areas is often an expensive endeavor, sometimes requiring the largest portion of an already small budget, but what do we know about the impact of these signs? How do visitors to neighborhood natural areas interact with and use the signs? This multiple-method study investigated how visitors interacted with interpretive signs in two neighborhood natural areas in a mid-sized urban area. Results of this study indicate that a majority of natural area visitors were repeat visitors; however, when tested, first-time visitors scored higher on a knowledge assessment of information presented on the interpretive signs than repeat. Similarly, visitors’ appreciation for the signs varied whether they were running, biking, or walking. This insight may be helpful as natural areas invest in interpretive signage during a time of tight budgets.

Visitors’ perceived impacts of interpretation on knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral intentions at Miquelon Lake Provincial Park, Alberta, Canada

“…Many factors seem to influence the impacts of interpretive programs on outcomes, including interpretive layering (exposure to more than one type of interpretive medium) and intensity (Coghlan and Kim, 2012; Hughes and Morrison-Saunders, 2005; Madin and Fenton, 2004; Weiler and Smith, 2009). Second, outcomes of interpretive programs are influenced by visitor motivations (Ballantyne et al., 1998; Davis and Thompson, 2011; Falk, 2006; Stewart et al., 1998) and visitor characteristics (e.g. age, experience; He and Chen, 2012; Kim et al., 2011; Porter and Howard, 2002; Peake et al., 2009).…”

Campus sustainability tours: exploring an uncharted tool

“…If signage is used, consider carefully where it will be placed. It may be worthwhile to place signage in waiting areas rather than areas of high traffic, as has been suggested in other research (Davis and Thompson, 2011).…”

“…Reasons for this brevity might be attributed to differences between campus tours and nature area tours. Davis and Thompson (2011) noted that only 74 per cent of visitors stopped to view signs posted in a nature area. Most viewers of the Green Tour signage discovered it by walking through campus rather than as an intentional act.…”

“…Given that so many potential readers hurry past the signs without fully reading them, signs may be more effective at meeting university objectives if positioned in places where people congregate for a period of time, such as a bus stop, where readers may have time and desire to finish reading the sign before heading to their next destination. Research on signage in natural park areas support this suggestion because the most common reason noted for stopping to read a sign was its relative location (Davis and Thompson, 2011).…”

The Use of Simple Language in Informal Forest Education as a Key to the Correct Interpretation of Sustainable Forest Management—The Experience of Poland

“…In the scientific world, there have already been attempts to study the opinions of forest, trail, and museum users about educational boards [35][36][37][38]. There have also been attempts to analyze the power of attraction and the retention of focus of forest users [39], attempts to analyze the factors affecting these qualities in people stimulated by the educational boards as well as attempts to analyze the impact of the subject matter of the boards on public opinion [35,40], but still very little is known about the accessibility of the texts that are posted on them. One example describing this problem is the work of Janeczko et al [41].…”