ISO 22324:2022, Security and resilience — Emergency management — Guidelines for colour-coded alerts, is an international standard developed by ISO/TC 292 Security and resilience. This document provide guidelines for color codes to indicate severity of hazards in public warnings.
There are many different systems are already in use, such as colour state of meteorological condition or former Homeland Security Advisory System, and the standard is intended to be an approach to eliminate confusion due to such differences.[1]
Scope and contents
editISO 22324 includes the following main clauses:[2]
1 Scope
2 Normative references
3 Terms and definitions
4 Guidance for use of colour codes
4.1 General
4.2 Colour codes to express the status of hazard
4.3 Colour codes to give supplementary information
4.4 Consideration for human factors and colour blindness
Annex A Examples on the use of colour codes in practice
Annex B Recommendations for colour selection
Color codes for severity level
editThree basic color codes for severity levels are defined with meaning and proposed action, as in following table.[3]
Basic color codes Color Text color Meaning Proposed action Red White Danger Take appropriate safety action immediately Yellow Black Caution Prepare to take appropriate safety action Green White Safe No action required
If more than three levels of hazards are needed, the standard recommends use of colors on the spectrum between the red and green. The number of levels should be minimized to avoid confusion, not to exceed seven colors.
Diversity of human limitation of ability to recognize color, including color blindness, should be paid attention when a color code system is brought into operation. The standard recommends to pay special care to provide supporting information, such as:
- text (recommended color is shown in the table), numbers, shape, symbol or size
- audible color name, such as audible "red alert" voice
- positional cues i.e. colors should always be placed in a certain defined order in increasing levels of severity, such as left to right or bottom to top
Color codes for supplementary information
editThe standard gives additional color codes for supplementary information, defined with meaning and usage limitation, as in following table.[4]
Color Text color Meaning Usage Black White Fatal danger Can be used with red; can be replaced by black-and-white checkerboard pattern Purple White Fatal danger Can be used with red Blue White Informational purposes Should not be used to indicate level of severity Grey No information available To indicate no information is available
Black and purple can be used to indicate special cases of danger, i.e. red color code, thus supporting information such as text (recommended color shown in table above) is also recommended.
An example is the sequence black–red–yellow–green, used in triage tag in most part of the world.
Recommended Color Selection
editThe Annex B (informational) of the standard gives recommended selection of color for above-defined color codes. Each color code has saturated and unsaturated cases, both defined in Munsell, CMYK, and RGB systems.
Related standards
editISO 22324 is part of a series of ISO standards and Technical Reports on Emergency management, including[5]
- ISO 22320:2018 Security and resilience – Emergency management – Guidelines for incident management[6]
- ISO 22322:2022 Security and resilience – Emergency management – Guidelines for public warning[7]
- ISO 22325:2016 Security and resilience – Emergency management – Guidelines for capability assessment[8]
- ISO 22326:2018 Security and resilience – Emergency management – Guidelines for monitoring facilities with identified hazards[9]
- ISO 22327:2018 Security and resilience – Emergency management – Guidelines for implementation of a community-based landslide early warning system[10]
- ISO/TR 22351:2015 Societal security – Emergency management – Message structure for exchange of information[11]
History
editThis standard was published for the first time in 2015.
| Year | Description |
|---|---|
| 2015 | ISO 22324 (1st edition) |
| 2022 | ISO 22324 (2nd edition) |
References
edit- ^ Standards New Zealand, 2013: ISO Standards for timely disaster warnings will help save lives, [1] accessed 2015-06-21.
- ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2016-06-17. Retrieved 2020-07-28.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ ISO 22324:2015, Section 4.2.
- ^ ISO 22324:2015, Section 4.3.
- ^ "ISOTC292". www.isotc292online.org. Archived from the original on 2020-09-22. Retrieved 2020-07-27.
- ^ "ISO 22320:2018". ISO. 12 July 2019.
- ^ "ISO 22322:2015". ISO. 13 November 2015.
- ^ "ISO 22325:2016". ISO.
- ^ "ISO 22326:2018". ISO.
- ^ "ISO 22327:2018". ISO.
- ^ "ISO/TR 22351:2015". ISO.
External links
editStandards
edit- Catalogue entry for ISO 22324:2015 (contains link to preview for partial text)