Risk and effectiveness criteria for using on-product warnings

A variety of potential hazards can be identified for nearly any consumer product, often more than can be practically or effectively addressed with warning labels. Published standards and guidelines for warnings do not offer a reasonable basis for limiting the number and length of warning labels. This paper proposes criteria for the use and design of warning labels based on effectiveness research, accident data, and product-associated risk.

[1]  R. G. Sell,et al.  An Experiment on the Effect of Specially Designed Safety Posters , 1960 .

[2]  Paul Slovic,et al.  The psychology of protective behavior , 1978 .

[3]  John R. Treat,et al.  A study of precrash factors involved in traffic accidents , 1980 .

[4]  Roger L. McCarthy,et al.  Warnings on Consumer Products: Objective Criteria for their use , 1982 .

[5]  S. Breznitz.  Cry Wolf: The Psychology of False Alarms , 1984 .

[6]  Pamela R. Rothstein.  Designing Warnings to be Read and Remembered , 1985 .

[7]  Frank E. Gomer.  Evaluating the Effectiveness of Warnings under Prevailing Working Conditions , 1986 .

[8]  Bruce A. Thyer,et al.  The "Buckle-Up" Dashboard Sticker , 1987 .

[9]  Julien M. Christensen,et al.  Comments on Products Safety , 1987 .

[10]  Lise Héroux,et al.  Consumer product label information processing: An experiment involving time pressure and distraction , 1988 .

[11]  David M. DeJoy,et al.  Consumer Product Warnings: Review and Analysis of Effectiveness Research , 1989 .

[12]  Thomas J. Ayres,et al.  What is a Warning and When Will it Work? , 1989 .

[13]  Michael S. Wogalter,et al.  Effects of Cost and Social Influence on Warning Compliance , 1989 .

[14]  R. Brubaker,et al.  Health-risk warning labels on smokeless tobacco products: are they effective? , 1990, Addictive behaviors.

[15]  Michael S. Wogalter,et al.  Evaluating the Behavioral Effectiveness of a Multi-Modal Voice Warning Sign in a Visually Cluttered Environment , 1991 .

[16]  Mark R. Lehto,et al.  Risk-taking, warning labels, training, and regulation: Are they associated with the use of helmets by all-terrain vehicle riders? , 1991 .

[17]  M. Wogalter,et al.  Behavioural compliance to voice and print warnings , 1991 .

[18]  T A Dingus,et al.  The effects of compliance cost and specific consequence information on the use of safety equipment. , 1992, Accident; analysis and prevention.

[19]  James Paul Frantz.  Effect of Location, Procedural Explicitness, and Presentation Format on User Processing of and Compliance with Product Warnings and Instructions , 1992 .

[20]  Thomas J. Ayres,et al.  A Methodological Taxonomy for Warnings Research , 1992 .

[21]  Kenneth R. Laughery,et al.  Everybody Knows Or Do They? , 1993 .

[22]  D. Mackinnon,et al.  The alcohol warning label and adolescents: the first year. , 1993, American journal of public health.

[23]  L R Zeitlin,et al.  Failure to Follow Safety Instructions: Faulty Communication or Risky Decisions? , 1994, Human factors.

[24]  Ingrid M. Martin,et al.  Intended and Unintended Consequences of Warning Messages: A Review and Synthesis of Empirical Research , 1994 .

[25]  Ken W. Brown.  Private-college financial results and their effect on tuition-rate policies , 1994 .