Riverline runs the ferries and buses along the Tagus, and a large share of its passengers are visitors who don’t read Portuguese. Its old signs relied on words, and the few icons it had were borrowed from four different sets.
We designed 64 icons on a single grid: stops, connections, accessibility, tickets and safety. Every icon works at 16 pixels on a phone and at a metre wide on a platform sign.
Tested with real passengers
Tomás and Daniel Okafor’s team stood on ferry piers for two days with printed cards, asking passengers what each symbol meant. Nine icons were redrawn after those sessions, including the one for step-free access, which most people had read as a lift.
They tested every symbol with real passengers before a single sign was printed.
Daniel Okafor, Riverline Transit
