Comparison of ANSI and ISO Standard Formats on People's Response to Product Warnings

Abstract

Warning labels can be formatted in a variety of ways. ANSI Z535.4 and ISO 3864-2 are two voluntary standards that provide guidance on label format. Two studies examined people's perception of (Study 1) and behavior in response to (Study 2) warning labels formatted in the following ways: (1) Non-standard format, (2) ANSI-format, (3) ISO-format, and (4) a combination of the ANSI- and ISO-format. The results of Study 1 show that lay people think that warning format will significantly influence people's behavior in terms of noticing and complying with warnings. However, the results of Study 2 showed that people's actual behavioral compliance is not significantly influenced by the standard warning formats compared to the Non-standard condition. Subjects did report reading more of the Non-standard label than the other labels. The results of these studies are consistent with previous findings in the warning literature. Implications of these results are discussed.

Perceptions and Use of Product-Related Age Recommendations: A Case Study Involving ATVs

“…The fact that these parents did not follow the recommendations explicitly indicates that they attended to other sources of information in making potential purchase decisions. This finding is consistent with previous research showing that many factors other than the nature of a safety-related communication influence how people behave (Frantz, Young, Rhoades & Wisniewski, 2005;Shaver et al, 2006).…”

Caution! Warnings as a Useless Countermeasure to Reduce Overconfidence? An Experimental Evaluation in Light of Enhanced and Dynamic Warning Designs

“…This leads to a rejection of Hypothesis 2 (EW better than UW) and the assessment that the statement “[u]nfortunately, even if a warning label or sign has all these elements, it still might not be heeded” (Rogers et al, , p. 103) holds true in the EW condition. It is important to note that, contrary to recommendations by one group of researchers in human factors and ergonomics (Wogalter et al, ; Wogalter, ; Wogalter et al, ), this result supports the deviating view that actual behavior is relatively unaffected by changes in the warning format (Shaver et al, ; Young et al, ). Neither weak nor enhanced static warnings seem strong enough to affect the individual information processing or mapping of confidence to the response scale and thus overconfidence levels.…”

“…Even though such standard warning elements might increase the warning's effectiveness in some situations as hypothesized, it has to be noted that the results of previous research are mixed. For example, Young, Frantz, Rhoades, and Darnell (2002) and Shaver et al (2006) find that, while people think that the warning format has an influence on subsequent behavior, their actual behavior is relatively unaffected by changes in the warning format, i.e. inclusion/exclusion of standard warning elements.…”

Product warnings and the involuntary capture of attention

“…None of the participants looked at or read the posted warnings, regardless of the warning format. Other studies that report measureable rates for participants noticing warning labels similarly do not show beneficial effects of supplementing a warning's format with elements intended to capture attention (including color, pictograms, symbols, and formatting consistent with existing voluntary warnings standards) (e.g., Frantz, Young, Rhoades, & Wisniewski, 2005;Jaynes & Boyles, 1990;Otsubo, 1988;Shaver et al, 2006). Such results are at odds with the findings from surveys, in which respondents often think there will be an effect from adding formatting elements to warnings.…”

“…Such results are at odds with the findings from surveys, in which respondents often think there will be an effect from adding formatting elements to warnings. Participants in studies across a wide range of products consistently and incorrectly predict that the addition of formatting elements will lead to the warning being noticed by a greater proportion of people than labels lacking such features (Frantz et al, 2005;Shaver et al, 2006).…”