Techdirt: What would you do if you found yourself at the LA Convention Center in the middle of WESTEC -- a trade show for machine manufacturers? Well, if you're my friend Jean from Notcot, you would go around and take a ton of pictures of the warning labels found on a bunch of the machines.
Saturday, April 14, 2012
There Are So Many Ways Machines Can Hurt You... And There Are Warning Stickers For Them All
Techdirt: What would you do if you found yourself at the LA Convention Center in the middle of WESTEC -- a trade show for machine manufacturers? Well, if you're my friend Jean from Notcot, you would go around and take a ton of pictures of the warning labels found on a bunch of the machines.
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6 comments:
It's scary that some of these are really quite funny. From the looks of it, the machine industry has gotten a little cartoon-happy in trying to craft its warning labels. What concerns me is that 1-some of the pictures seemed to have nothing to do with the adjacent warnings, which meant that I wasn't getting all the information I needed to operate the machine safely, and 2-the pictures are more detailed and nuanced than they need to be, meaning that they take real time to decipher, and one CAN get them wrong. That definitely shouldn't be the case. With the potential hazards of these machines being what they are, it is so important that warnings be clear and straightforward, or someone could get hurt, and a company could be seeing some serious legal action from its customers...
I find warning labels interesting. They can convey a lot of important information really easily but, like ads on tv, they kind of get ignored if there are too many of them. There is also the question of having the graphic to make them. It’s easier to convey information with a cartoon or simplified pictogram but I feel people are more likely to follow them if they are more graphic.
If these warning labels weren't there, I'm sure there'd be many more injuries. What's surprising and kind of sad is how often they get overlooked as if they weren't there, and causing injuries to still happen. Pictures and graphical representations of what could happen if and when things go wrong certainly help, but I think the most important thing people need to be equipped with aside from knowledge is common sense. If you don't know how something works, ask. If something doesn't feel right, stop what you're doing and ask for help.
I've also wondered who comes up with these - who makes the call that the illustration is clear enough to be understood across multiple languages and backgrounds depending on where and how the machine is used. The clarity of these labels can completely affect a situation in which the operator needs to be warned of the dangers that are present during its operation. I very much would have liked to see what machines these labels were on.
I'm sorry, but some of those illustrations convey absolutely nothing! I'm not sure if it's because we can't see the rest of the machine or not, but particularly in the first image, which have no written warning, are really confusing, and potentially even more dangerous! Am I not supposed to read the manual without my wrench? And should I beware of sparks? Or is that an explosion? This is one really, really important example of how clarity of information needs to outweigh entertainment value
These warning labels remind me of the types of drawings that I always see my friends in the design program doing (no, not drama design, I’m talking about the ones that reside in Maggie Mo.) The warnings are in a particular style that’s sole purpose is to communicate an idea effectively and completely. The uniformity of the style reminds me of the drawings that industrial designers do. While their drawings easily produce exact proportions and spatial understanding, these labels use universal symbols to effectively show a person, the tool they are using, and the source of potential danger.
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