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The development of guidelines for the design and evaluation of warning signs for young children
Patrick Waterson1, Alice Monk1
1Loughborough Design School, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, United Kingdom.
Insights
This study refines guidelines for designing and evaluating warning signs for children aged 5-11. Findings support existing guidelines but emphasize detailed audience consideration and expanded evaluation methods for child safety visuals.
Area of Science:
- Human Factors
- Child Safety
- Visual Communication
Background:
- Existing guidelines for warning signs for children (Waterson et al., 2012) require further development.
- Effective visual communication is crucial for ensuring child safety.
Purpose of the Study:
- To refine and develop guidelines for the design and evaluation of warning signs and visual materials for children aged 5-11 years.
- To identify areas for improvement in current guidelines based on stakeholder input.
Main Methods:
- Conducted semi-structured interviews and focus groups with parents, teachers, and human factors experts (n=38).
- Gathered qualitative data on the design and evaluation of safety signs for young children.
Main Results:
- Broad support was found for the existing guidelines.
- Identified needs for more detailed audience consideration (age, gender, special needs), sign placement, and integration with safety campaigns.
- Evaluation guidelines require enhancement in methods like simulation and role-playing.
Conclusions:
- A revised set of guidelines is proposed for a more comprehensive approach to designing and evaluating child safety signs.
- Future research should focus on behavioral testing with children and caregivers to improve design and evaluation support.
Abstract:
We report a study which aimed to provide further development and refinement of a set of guidelines (Waterson et al., 2012) for the design and evaluation of warning signs and other visual material for young children (i.e., aged 5-11 years). The study involved a set of semi-structured interviews and focus groups with the parents of young children, teachers, human factors experts and other groups (n = 38). The findings from the study provided broad support for the guidelines, as well as highlighting a number of issues which need to be addressed. These included the need to consider the target audience in more detail and provide additional guidance covering possible tie-ins with safety campaigns, sign location, age differences, gender and children's special needs. Similar findings were obtained with regard to the evaluation guidelines and their coverage of methods and activities for testing signs (e.g., simulation, role playing). We discuss our findings within the context of a revised set of guidelines and a set of suggestions aimed at working towards a more comprehensive approach to the design/evaluation of signs for young children. The paper concludes with a set of future topics for research including a discussion of ways forward in terms of improving support for design and evaluation including behavioural testing with children, their parents and other care givers.
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