mine safety management systems, signage is one of the system components used for
delivering warning and guidance messages to mining workers so as to promote
appropriate and responsible behaviour in mine areas. It is important that “the industrial
designer should make a sign as clear and unequivocal as possible so that the target
group understand the message” (Mono, 1997). Recent studies on safety signs, however,
have shown that some safety signs do not convey safety messages at all effectively (Liu
et al., 2005). Failure to achieve adequate understanding and to convey warning
information effectively can lead to injury or death (Lesch, 2003). Therefore, to reduce the
risk of misunderstanding and increase the level of sign comprehension, there is a need to
investigate the effects of user factors on sign understanding and to design safety signs
with a high level of usability. The study of industrial safety sign comprehensibility is
thus of great importance because at present there are no local codes, regulations, or
standards governing the design and use of such signs. It is of course, of interest to study
general understanding of safety signs by the people working in different industrial
environments. However, here, the authors considered that this study should be
conducted using safety officers because they are safety professionals with safety
work experience in various industries and work environments. As safety professionals,
the safety officers should be familiar with general industrial safety and health
matters, and have reasonable knowledge and understanding of the intended meanings
of safety signs.
provided in the workplace (Sneddon et al., 2004; Laurence, 2005).