Year: 2009
Type: article
Abstract: This research examines some design features that may increase noticeability, readership and recall of warnings within the text of product owner's manuals.Variables manipulated were warning saliency (e.g., low or high saliency), the physical placement of warnings in text (e.g., embedded versus separate), and text-directed cueing (e.g., low versus high salient cueing) in a fractional factorial design.High salient warnings had a signal word panel, alert symbol icons, bulleted text and black borders while low salient warnings were devoid of those features and appeared in paragraph prose-style text.Participants were assigned to one of two samples, a non-eye tracked and an eye-tracked sample.Both samples underwent similar procedures to assess reading and recall of warning information.Six groups comprised the non-eye tracked sample: each group viewed one of six possible conditions, each condition with a unique combination of variables (e.g., warning saliency, physical placement and cueing).The eye-tracked sample comprised of two groups, each group viewed 1 of 2 opposing conditions with variable combinations that formulated a low and high salient condition.Regardless of the sample, participants only viewed one condition.While there were no significant group differences in recall accuracy of warnings in the non-eye tracked samples, the low salient conditions in the eye-tracked samples had higher recall accuracy than the high salient conditions.Also, participants in high salient conditions with high salient cues significantly shifted visual attention to cued warnings more often than the low salient conditions with low salient cues.However, the eye-tracked sample failed to show significance differences in how many warnings were noticed and read between low and high salient conditions.In addition, the assessment of participants' first three fixations indicated that they may initially scan page contents before reading onset at the top left corner of the page.The fixation locations were not influenced by warning locations.Future research directions and study implications are addressed.
Author: Jennifer Cowley
Language: English
Topic: Safety Warnings and Signage
Subfield: Human Factors and Ergonomics
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2521141779