Emerging Methodologies for the Assessment of Safety Related Product Communications

Abstract

The analysis and prevention of accidents often addresses issues related to compliance with product usage and cautionary information found on the product and within its accompanying manual. The actual knowledge applied when using a product, however, likely comes from many other sources in addition to (or instead of) these sources. In cases where inappropriate knowledge is applied to the use of a product, an injury, property damage, or substandard output may occur. This being the case, the development of a product and its accompanying information should consider user knowledge and patterns of behavior in the absence or partial absence of printed product information. Contemporary guidelines for safety related communications, however, emphasize the physical features and content of product information rather than formal analysis of user characteristics.

To address these concerns, this paper suggests methods which may be further developed and validated to predict product usage behaviors and user interpretation of product information. The authors present applications of word association methods, semantic features analysis, and script analysis using a case study approach. In situations where undesired behavior is predicted, the authors suggest that user analysis may often indicate countermeasures other than the simple addition or alteration of written product information.