New Clothing Symbols: Do they Wash?

A recent standard promulgated by ASTM (D 5489) presents symbols to be used on clothing labels to indicate how they should be cared for in the cleaning process. The present studies were performed to evaluate how well these symbols would be understood by individuals who might use them. Four experiments were performed on the symbols listed in the standard and an alternate set developed for experimental purposes that was more pictorially representative of the concepts. Ratings of the symbols in the standard were relatively low, in comparison with more representative symbols. Recall of the meanings of the standard symbols was fairly good after five to seven days, but not as good as for the alternate set. Ability to determine the meaning of the standard symbols without previous experience with them was significantly poorer than for the alternate set. The results indicate the importance of testing symbols before adopting them.