Informative and decorative pictures in health and safety posters for children

Klohn, S. C. and Black, A. (2018) Informative and decorative pictures in health and safety posters for children. Visible Language, 52 (3). pp. 30-51. ISSN 0022-2224

Abstract/Summary

Health and safety (H&S) campaigns for children are often aimed at six to twelve year olds, with the same materials targeted across this age range despite their developmental and cognitive differences. We conducted a study to examine whether three different visual approaches to H&S posters influenced children’s engagement with and ability to elaborate from the poster content, and preferences for the posters. The study was conducted with children from two age groups (7-8 and 10-11 years of age). The posters were designed with the same verbal information but we varied the presented pictorial information: Poster 1 had informative pictorial information; Poster 2 had decorative pictorial information; poster 3 had no pictorial information. The study consisted of a written activity and a discussion. The results suggest children from each age group have different responses to the different kinds of posters tested, and particularly age-related preferences for informative or decorative pictures. We describe four responses tendencies that should be considered for further research.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/79237
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Arts and Communication Design > Typography & Graphic Communication
Publisher	University of Cincinnati, School of Design
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