A jumbled collection of Lobna Hassan’s name tags from different events. The name tags are of different sizes, material, and colors.

Name tags are an essential part of every in-person event. How they are designed contributes significantly to how much they will facilitate or hinder interaction.

I have been commissioned by DGRA (the Digital Game Research Association) to write a guide for the design of an accessible (to people with disabilities) and inclusive (in terms of gender diversity) name tags for in-person events.

You may wonder what qualifies me to talk about name tags, well, my qualifications are under the about me section at the end of this document. They are not much beyond that I have organised several events myself, and have experienced the challenge of making effective name tags. I have also attended several events, as a person with low vision, and significantly suffered through them.

I am undertaking this task as a volunteer task to contribute to bettering my community. I am human and I am doing this to the best of my ability, hence, I ask for your understanding of any shortcomings. I also ask you to improve upon this effort by adding your own constructive recommendations in the comments!

Now, without further adieu, let me share with you my thoughts for designing effective name tags

1. What is the purpose of name tags? Yeah, seriously?

As I see it, name tags are there to help people interact with each other at “large” events where it becomes difficult to remember names and faces. Hence, name tags, need to communicate key essential information:

• A person’s name
• A person’s nickname. Some people prefer to be addressed with a name different from their formal / publishing name, or vice versa. As an organiser, consider adding this additional line when needed (also as part of the registration form)
• Role in the event: attendee, organiser, IT support….
• Occupation: student, researcher, postdoc, professor, journalist….. HOWEVER, dismantling hierarchies could also be fun and a catalyst for conversation across “ranks”. Consider adding/removing these depending on your needs and cultural context.
• Organisation: such as the university or company that the person belongs to. Consider also organisation’s country. Few people would know where University of Ain Shams is (it’s in Egypt).
• Preferably pronouns or gender: such as male / he, him, female / she, her, non-binary / they, them……
• Disability / Inclusion needs: blind, deaf, needs non-verbal, social distancing. This part of name tags is a bit new and I have not seen it implemented a lot but it is especially useful and became more popular during the pandemic.
• Optional: Key event information which can often be added to the back of the name tag. This can include a map of the event, event room numbers, organisers’ contacts, emergency numbers, etc.

Please note that it is not required to have all of these. Rarely is anything in life ever required. These are just the key points that are often included on name tags that I could think of. There could also be other points that I did not think of. Please consider your particular event and examine which of these - and other - key information is relevant or irrelevant to your particular needs.

2. What the purpose of name tags is NOT

A name tag is NOT a space to show artistic designs. Event organisers often like to brand their events with unique colors, visuals, etc. While these certainly are appreciated and can add a unique flavor to an event, more often than not, they can obstruct the readability and clarity of a name tag. Please recognise that function trumps design in this situation.

3. Recommendations for text clarity and readability

If you are a person who has good eyesight close to 20/20 or 6/6, I say this with love, but please do not consider yourself a reliable measure of name tag readability. Just please don’t. Please understand that you are organising an event for people who will have vastly different ranges of vision. Either follow standard accessibility recommendations, or print a test name tag and test it with a few colleagues with non-typical vision, such as people with low vision or color blindness. What is “big and clear” font to someone with typical vision, or close to typical vision, is decidedly not for someone with atypical vision.

Standard print accessibility recommendations are

• There is a balance between the size of the name tag and the size of print font. See title 4 below.
• Make the biggest name tags that you could reasonably make within your budget. This will give you more real estate to work with, allowing you to more comfortably include more information on your name tag while also fulfilling the next requirement.
• Use the biggest font sizes that you could reasonably use on your intended name tag. I would say a minimum of 18pt but it depends on the intended size of the name tag. You can print bigger fonts if you have more room or smaller fonts if that is what you need to do.
• Use a clear font type. Most sans serif font types tend to be readable, such as Times New Roman, Arial, or Helvetica.
• Avoid light prints, italics, and make sure there is good spacing between letters. Again, this is not the place to be artistic.
• Ensure clear contrast for example by printing black letter on a white background. Please do NOT print on pictures or designs, or any kind of aesthetics…. I beg you. Even if the font is big, low contrast because of background design can render the fonts illegible
• Avoid using color only to communicate information. Communicae using color + words or color + shapes. See title 6 below.

4. The ratio of font size to name tag size

There is a balance between the size of a name tag and the size of print font. A common mishap I see with name tags is that organisers would go for printing huge name tags, but they would still use a relatively small print font size, waisting a huge amount of empty space on the name tag that they already paid for. Please consider these example:

5 name tags marked from 1 to 5 from the left to the right. Important aspects of the name tags are discussed next.

All of these name tags are bigger than the standard name tag attached with a clip that we see at most event, yet, these name tags do not make the best use of the real estate they have. Allow me to use them to illustrate a few design readability points:

• Name tags 1 and 5 spend a lot of space on the event logo. We know what the event is, we are there, the logo is everywhere at the event space. Please avoid spending name tag space on showing off aesthetics. This is not the space for it. Use that space to communicate more important information in bigger fonts.
• Name tag 2 is similar in size to name tag 1 but uses a significantly larger print size. This is better, yet, name tag 2 still wastes a lot of potential in the white space. The font size there could easily have been bigger with no added printing costs. Also, the yellow logo at the bottom right is not very readably because of the low contrast of yellow on white, but, at least that information is not essential to the function of the name tag. Aesthetics, if they have to be there, do not need to take a lot of real estate space.