Effects of user factors and sign referent characteristics in participatory construction safety sign redesign

This study examined the effects of user factors and sign referent characteristics in participatory construction safety sign redesign. A group of Hong Kong Chinese construction workers were requested to draw different safety sign referents and then to narrate their drawings and redesign ideas. The more concrete the sign referents (i.e. referents that represent an actual substance or thing), the higher the success at producing pictorials and the greater the commonality between redesign suggestions for the referents. Construction workers with lower education level perceived the referents as less concrete than those with higher education level; and those with higher spatial imagery preference (i.e. the preference for using imagery to represent spatial relations among objects schematically and to perform complex spatial transformations) were better at processing unfamiliar and abstract referents. However, construction workers were not aware of and did not understand the intended meanings of particular surround shapes and colors commonly used in safety sign systems. These findings are useful in facilitating the process and practice of participatory safety sign redesign with workers in future.