Airport waiting areas as behavior settings: The role of legibility cues in communicating the setting program.

Abstract

Three studies examined the impact of legibility on compliance with smoking regulations. Waiting areas at a large airport were viewed as behavior settings (R. G. Barker, 1968) in which smoking rules could be communicated more clearly by applying K. Lynch's (1960) notions of legibility. Study I identified 3 types of areas: clearly no smoking, clearly smoking permitted, and ambiguous. As predicted, ambiguous areas had significantly more smokers than clearly defined no-smoking areas. In Study 2, legibility was varied systematically: Both legibility and user location in the areas contributed to users' knowledge of the rules, and there were more smoking violations in illegible areas. Study 3 indicated that when smoking occurred in a no-smoking area, people were more likely to act as maintenance mechanisms when in a legible area and when in the center of the area.