warnings

I’m at the airport waiting to board a flight.  Here is a funny warning message that greeted me on the parking garage ticket-dispensing machine:

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Reader Kim Wolfinbarger sent me this picture of sport drinks looking enough like drain cleaner to make her do a double-take.

Just read your July post on poisons that look like sports drinks. An interesting twist is sports drinks that look like poisons. I did a double-take at the grocery store last weekend, thinking that drain cleaner had been shelved with the sodas. Note the triangle icon–looks an awful lot like a hazardous materials
sign.

Do you think perhaps there is some commonality in the marketing backgrounds of the designers? Bright colors and strong lines make you believe you’re getting something powerful (whether it be a cleaner or a “performance” drink?)

In case you missed their point, it does say on the back “CAUTION: POWERFUL” and is not recommended for children.

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Richard and I are currently attending the Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. I thought I’d report on some of the interesting work we saw this week.

First, a shameless plug for research conducted at my own university. David Sharek and Mike Wogalter presented data on how clueless and careless the “wired” generation can be when it comes to computer security. Briefly, undergraduates treated real and fake “security” announcements on PC’s similarly: by clicking “ok” to whatever it asked them. My mother has personal, recent experience that this is a GREAT way to get spyware and viruses on your computer. You might think that 20 year-olds would not be so easily fooled… but then David and Mike wouldn’t have their study buzzed on: Slashdot, ScienceDaily, Reddit, and the BBC.

Second, we have a new “technical group” called Augmented Cognition. Talks in this session included two talks on using physiological markers to predict display needs (an area long pursued without as much progress as one might hope). Check out “Using physiological measures to discriminate signal detection outcome during imagery analysis” and “Biomarkers for effects of fatigue and stress on performance: EEG, P300, and heart-rate variability.”

There is much more, too much to mention individually, but I’d like to invite the readers to comment on their personal favorites from the week.

• Berka, C., Johnson, R., Whitmoyer, N., Behneman, A., & Popovic, D. (2008). Biomarkers for effects of fatigue and stress on performance: EEG, P300, and heart-rate variability.Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Santa Monica, CA, 192-196.
• Hale, K. S., Fuchs, S., & Axelsson, P. (2008). Using physiological measures to discriminate signal detection outcome during imagery analysis. Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Santa Monica, CA, 182-186.
• Sharek, D., Swofford, C. & Wogalter, M. (2008). Failure to recognize fake internet popup warning messages. Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Santa Monica, CA, 557-560.

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I snapped this picture near NCSU today. Looks like the garbage workers or apartment dwellers decided to take matters into their own hands.

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Found in the bathroom:

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Many Americans are jumping into the fast, mobile, participatory Web without considering all the implications. If nothing really bad has happened to someone, they tend neither to worry about their personal information nor to take steps to limit the amount of information that can be found about them online. This finding dovetails with our previous work related to spyware — software that covertly tracks a user as they navigate the net. Internet users who said they had not encountered spyware were less likely to view it as a serious threat and more likely to say it’s just part of life online.

[link]

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