The effects of sign styles on visitor behaviour at the orang-utan enclosure at Jersey Zoo

Signs are an important part of zoo visitor education; indeed for some visit ors they are the only opportunity to gain information. This investigation l ooked at the ability of two different styles of sign to attract and hold th e attention of visitors to the "longhouse", an education centre at the oran g-utan enclosure at Jersey Zoo, headquarters of the Durrell Wildlife Conser vation Trust. The amount of time visitors spent in the longhouse, looking a t the enclosure, and reading the existing signs was measured using unobtrus ive observation. The results were compared with times for a second set of t emporary signs, which incorporated features thought to improve the "readabi lity" of signs for visitors, such as smaller quantities of text, "grabber" headlines, and the use of colour and photography. Unexpectedly, the results showed that the existing signs at the enclosure were more effective than t he temporary second set of signs, in terms of the number of visitors who lo oked at the signs, the number of signs that were looked at, and the amount of time that they were viewed for. The percentage of words on a sign that c ould have been read, however, tended to be larger for the new signs if visi tors who ignored the signs or only glanced at them were excluded. Possible explanations for these results are discussed, although we cannot be sure wh ich aspects of sign design and placement were the most important as several were altered at once. This would need to be determined by a further series of experiments altering only one factor at a time.