Supplementing emergency warning messages to encourage readiness to act: The effect of colours and icons

This research examines the effect of adding icons and/or colours to official warnings in Australia, given the written elements of warning messages are optimised to encourage readiness to act. The paper investigates whether emergency warning messages can be further optimised by adding colours and/or icons to encourage even higher levels of readiness to act on emergency instructions.

The research results show that adding colours and/or icons to the Evacuate Now (Bushfire) message creates improvements, albeit small ones, in message comprehension, effectiveness, perceived probability and perceived self-efficacy. The other three messages showed no improvement (or loss) in message comprehension, effectiveness, threat appraisal, or coping appraisal as a result of adding colours and/or icons.