Citation

Chan AHS, Ng AW. Int. J. Occup. Safety Ergonomics 2012; 18(2): 195-208.

Affiliation

Department of Systems Engineering and Engineering Management, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. alan.chan@cityu.edu.hk.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Centralny Instytut Ochrony Pracy - Państwowy Instytut Badawczy, Publisher Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

22721538

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of user factors and cognitive sign features on the guessability of mine safety signs. Sixty naïve participants guessed the meanings and rated the cognitive sign features of 42 Mainland Chinese mine safety signs. The results showed that some user factors were significant predictors of guessing performance, while some were not. As expected, guessability scores varied significantly with the cognitive sign features of familiarity, concreteness, simplicity, meaningfulness and semantic closeness. The findings emphasize the need to create awareness of the importance of mine safety and promote understanding of mine safety sign meanings amongst people in their work environments. To design more user-friendly mine safety signs, industrial designers should develop and evaluate signs with consideration of the significant user factors and the 5 sign features tested here.

Language: en