Perceived effectiveness of bilingual label designs by English and Spanish language users

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Hispanics are now the largest minority group in the U.S. Because many of these immigrants know little or no English, they are at a greater risk of injury because most product warning systems in the U.S. are exclusively in English. This study examined the perceptions and performance of both English and Spanish language users for various formats of bilingual labels (labels with two languages). English and Spanish language users gave ratings of acceptability, likelihood of purchasing product, and the likelihood of reading to each of a set of systematically-manipulated bilingual label designs on actual box and cylinder shaped containers. In general, designs having both languages arranged horizontally (side-by-side) were given higher ratings than vertically (top and bottom). English users strongly preferred labels with English in the primary position (e.g., left side, top side); whereas Spanish language users held less strong beliefs about their language in the primary position. The design with English-text on the left half and the Spanish-text on the right half on the box was the most preferred by both English and Spanish language users in the set tested. The box container labels were rated higher than those on the cylinder. The results suggest that bilingual labels are not only viewed favorably by users of the benefited minority language, but also by users of the majority language.