Some quick thoughts:

Although a serif font is better for long-reads, in short indicative texts it doesn't matter so much if you pick a serif or sans. As long as the serifs don't become too ornamental. However, I'd probably choose a sans-serif font, because of its more neutral, modern style.

Many fonts are available, like this Univers:

(I do have a worry about that uppercase "Q"...)

Serif fonts always tend to carry a sense of culture in them, which is not something you wish for in a public area. A large fashion store might appreciate it, but then again, it might clash with some of the fashion styles.

Certain slab-serifs might pull it off, like this one:

Oops, wait – no-go ! The numbers are too fancy. They should be non-proportional (tabular), and not proportional mediaeval. Again, that's nice for long-reads...

The x-height should be relatively large, to increase legibility. So this Brandon or a Futura font is probably not fit for that purpose. It requires a larger size (thus more line height and space) to offer the same optical size.

The font needs a vast set of (accented) glyphs, to support many languages.

Character-proof ! Check all glyphs for their unambiguous identification in dire circumstances. The lowercase "a" (either roman and especially in italic") requires a loop, in order to distinguish it immediately from an "o". And there must be a clear difference between uppercase "I", lowercase "l" and "i". And the "O" and "0" (zero), "B" and "8" (eight) shouldn't be easy to confuse.

Take a good look at how characters and words are rendered on digital displays. Sometimes these are very coarse, or glaring, or suffering from disturbances. It would be nice if the text would still be legible in such less optimal conditions !

In way finding or even signs in general, designers often apply some range spacing or tracking as they call it; a subtle amount of extra space between characters, to prevent words to collate into a blur when viewed from a distance or in bad conditions. Not too much, otherwise they'll look like real spaces.

And a font with a decent built-in spacing to begin with is also beneficial. It saves time when you don't need to manually kern all characters to render a good word shape.

Don't know what kerning means ?
Then give this kerning game a try !

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Oorspronkelijk geplaatst op Quora: What are the fonts generally used for public signage/wayfinding?"