Comparison of ANSI and ISO Standard Formats on People's Response to Product Warnings

Warning labels can be formatted in a variety of ways. ANSI Z535.4 and ISO 3864-2 are two voluntary standards that provide guidance on label format. Two studies examined people's perception of (Study 1) and behavior in response to (Study 2) warning labels formatted in the following ways: (1) Non-standard format, (2) ANSI-format, (3) ISO-format, and (4) a combination of the ANSI- and ISO-format. The results of Study 1 show that lay people think that warning format will significantly influence people's behavior in terms of noticing and complying with warnings. However, the results of Study 2 showed that people's actual behavioral compliance is not significantly influenced by the standard warning formats compared to the Non-standard condition. Subjects did report reading more of the Non-standard label than the other labels. The results of these studies are consistent with previous findings in the warning literature. Implications of these results are discussed.