COVID-19: 'Stay Alert' message is visually confusing too
13 May 2020
Professor Sue Walker, a Typography expert at the University of Reading who is leading research into communicating health information to the public, said:
"In a time of anxiety and uncertainty people need to know what to do.
"In design terms they need easy to understand words, and visual messages which underpin the content. Stay at home, and the red and yellow frame of chevrons signalled danger and severity. It was clear that by doing this you protect the NHS and save lives.
"The new government message is confusing. ‘Stay alert’ is open to misinterpretation and changing from red to green implies go ahead. ‘Control the virus’ is similarly meaningless – and implies that it can be controlled – do we have the science that tells us that by being alert we can do this?
"There are problems with other aspects the new communications campaign: traffic-light alert levels are not immediately easy to understand; R is used on charts to mean both ‘rate of infection’ and ‘restrictions ease’. Charts have been compiled without basic labelling on axes and so on.
"Communicating information about health must be especially clear. It needs to be clear, consistent, and designed with the needs of users in mind."