Safety Symbols in ANSI and ISO Voluntary Standards - Do People Understand them?

Abstract

This paper presents the results of two studies which comprehension tested safety symbols in published ANSI and ISO voluntary standards. Study 1 tested safety symbols from the ANSI Z535.3 Criteria for Safety Symbols standard. Study 2 tested additional safety symbols from the ANSI Z535.3 standard as well as additional symbols from the ISO 7010 safety symbols standard. Overall, comprehension of the symbols in both studies was relatively poor. Only two of the twelve symbols tested in Study 1 and five of the fourteen symbols tested in Study 2 met ANSI Z535.3 acceptance criteria. Adding red to hazard alerting symbols to depict heat improved comprehension, but adding color and determinants to information symbols did not. Implications of these results for future revisions of the ANSI Z535.3 standard are discussed.