An Investigation of Preferred Shapes for Warning Labels

Abstract

An examination was made of 19 different geometric shapes of warning labels, using the method of paired comparisons. Sixty-six college students viewed slides of all pairs of the shapes and each time selected the shape that was the preferred indicator of warning. An ordinal scaling method was used to evaluate the differences among the shapes. Results show that the triangle on its vertex was the preferred warning indicator among the shapes tested.

Chinese perceptions of implied hazard for signal words and surround shapes

“…The distinction for arousal strength among the five shapes was significant, except for UPRIGHT TRI-ANGLE and INVERTED TRIANGLE. The sequence of arousal strength for the five shapes was almost consistent with the results found by Riley et al (1982), except that the rank order of DIAMOND and UPRIGHT TRIANGLE was reversed.…”

“…UP-RIGHT TRIANGLE and INVERTED TRIANGLE were ranked the first two, and RECT-ANGLE was the shape arousing the weakest strength to people. The sequence of arousal strength from high to low found here was almost consistent with the results of those on western people (Riley et al, 1982), except that the rank of DIAMOND and UPRIGHT TRIANGLE was reversed. Subsequent multiple comparison showed that there was no significant difference of arousal strength between UPRIGHT TRIANGLE and IN-VERTED TRIANGLE ( p Ͼ 0.05).…”

“…However, studies in this area are equivocal. Some studies support the assumption in standards and guidelines, the results of which have shown that shapes can differ in terms of connoted hazard and shapes surrounding the signal words in warnings can affect performance (Adams & Edworthy, 1995;Cochran, Riley, & Douglass, 1981;Collins, 1983;Riley, Cochran, & Ballard, 1982). However, in other studies, a relatively weak effect of surround shapes was shown (Brewster, 1995;Wogalter et al, 1995b;Young, 1998).…”

“…In this experiment, a questionnaire with the combinations of six commonly recommended signal words (DANGER, WARNING, CAUTION, ALERT, PREVENT, and NOTICE) and five surround shapes (INVERTED TRIANGLE, DIAMOND, UPRIGHT TRIANGLE, CIRCLE, RECTANGLE) was developed for testing. The chosen signal words and shapes covered a wide range of implied strength from high to low in the earlier studies (Riley et al, 1982;Wogalter & Silver, 1990), and the shapes are recommended by ANSI Z535.3, (1998), GB 2894(1996), and ISO 9186 (2000.…”

An image is worth a thousand words: the effects of visual health warnings in the decrease of tobacco consumption: a research from the perspective of social marketing

“…Debido a los pobres resultados obtenidos, resumidos anteriormente, un gran número de investigadores, entre los que citamos a Myers et al (1981), Daube (1982), Purdy y Luepnitz (1982), Riley et al (1982), Bhalla y Lastovicka (1984), Linthwaite (1985), Wogalter et al (1987), Magat et al (1988), Popper y Murray (1989), Wogalter et al (1989), Cragg (1990), Jaynes y Boles (1990), Young y Wogalter (1990), Beede, Lawson y Shepherd (1991), Young (1991), Laughery et al (1993), Barlow y Wogalter (1993), Fischer et al (1993), Naett y Howie (1993), Borland (1997), Liefeld (1999), Mahood (1999), Nilsson (1999), Duffy y Burton (2000), Hammond et al (2003), Hammond (2004), Hoeck et al (2005) y Hammond et al (2006), han cuestionado los esfuerzos necesarios para conseguir que las advertencias sanitarias sean más eficaces. Para ello, han experimentado con distintos elementos, como el tamaño (incremento de las palabras y formato de los anuncios), la forma (formas originales y presencia de iconos), el contraste de colores, la longitud del texto (más corto, más directo y simple), el contenido y el tono (uso de visuales chocantes).…”