TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
I have a binder on my desk from FMC that is labeled Product Safety Sign and
label System. This book is distributed at 3 day sem put on the University of
Madison Wisconsin. The seminar was titled Product Cautions Warnings. (last
I herd it was still run once or twice a year.) the sem was invaluable.
The binder covers developing labels and information to American National
Standard for Cautions and Warnings.
This book has graphics for reproduction and information on developing new
graphics as needed.
The information contained in the book can easily relate to manual content as
well. Information such as hierarchy of caution, warning, and danger, colors
used and text stricture are covered it is a very valuable resource.
The copy I have is old but the address and phone on the inside are
FMC Corporation
P.O. box 580
Santa Clara California 95052
408 289-3486
Christopher Gultch
-----Original Message-----
From: Moser, Suzanne [mailto:suzanne -dot- moser -at- lsil -dot- com]
Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2000 8:30 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Summarization Re: Standards for graphic symbols, etc.
On Wed 3/22/00 10:22 AM I submitted the following to TECHWR-L:
"I have searched TECHWR-L's archive prior to posting this rather general
series of questions. I appreciate any insight you can provide.
What standards are you using for Notes, Cautions, and Warnings and their
graphical symbols? What are some of the resources for the symbols'
standards? What are you using as a guideline to correctly align Notes,
Cautions, and Warnings in relation to the text?"
Thank you very much for your responses, which are summarized below.
Bold and italicize all the text.
-------------------
The graphic symbols used depend on the particular industry; each industry
has its own standards for the graphics for warnings, notes, and cautions.
-------------------
Because each industry's graphic symbols may have specific legal
implications, ask the legal department at your company.
-------------------
You can use a library of pre-designed items, with each class of graphic in
the left margin; there may be clipart available for the graphics; search
industrial sourcebooks.
-------------------
Each class of notice gets formatted/styled differently [all were indented,
offset, different font].
--------------------
Sources used: ISO, ANSI, and CE standards
Note: Tip to help with use. We used an image of a little piece of paper with
a push pin.
Warning 1: Yellow symbol, denotes potential for equipment damage.
Warning 2: Yellow symbol, denotes potential for minor personal injury.
Caution: Orange symbol, denotes potential for serious personal injury.
Danger: Red symbol, denotes certain serious injury or death.
For the symbols, we stuck with an exclamation mark in a triangle.
Typically, the text Warning, Danger, or Caution should be sans serif, and at
least two points larger than the warning message. The warning message should
be a serifed font, and should clearly indicate the dangerous action, and the
expected outcome. Never go smaller than 10 points Times Roman.
You can buy these images, premade, tested, and true.
In the standards the message must always come before the procedure;
sometimes the warnings appear a little out of context.
You can place warning messages on lines by themselves, and they really jump
off the page.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Sponsored by Weisner Associates Inc., Online Information Services
Training & consulting for RoboHELP, Dreamweaver, HTML, and HTML-Based Help.
More info at http://www.weisner.com/train/ or mailto:training -at- weisner -dot- com -dot-
Your web site in 32 languages? Maybe not now, but sooner than you think.
Contact ForeignExchange for the FREE paper, "3 steps to successful
translation management" (http://www.fxtrans.com/3steps.html?tw).
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: cgultch -at- gowcb -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-30428I -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
