Abstract

This study aimed to enhance children's safety by developing an internationally standardized children's accidental ingestion safety design that could effectively prevent accidental ingestion of small objects. Although most toys and stationery are now labelled with a children's accidental ingestion safety sign, the number of childhood accidental ingestion incidents continue to increase. This paradox reveals that conventional warning symbols fail to effectively communicate hazard information to young children due to inadequate alignment with their cognitive and perceptual capabilities. Through a systematic analysis of existing international safety standards, this research identified four fundamental deficiencies in current warning symbols: visual ambiguity and cross-national inconsistency, inadequate child user identification, insufficient depiction of prohibited objects, and absence of consequence visualization of swallowing. There are factors that can collectively compromise children’s risk perception. Employing a mixed-methods approach, this study conducted a comprehensive market audit of 100 toy packages across Korea and China, complemented by direct preference testing with 28 children aged 2–7 years. Findings were synthesized into an evidence-based shape–color–image design framework fully compliant with ISO 7010 and ISO 3864 standards. The proposed design added hair to clarify the image of a child and added a pained expression and tears to express pain more strongly. In addition, the unclear object to be put in the mouth was clarified by representing it as a block. This study contributes both theoretical insights into child-centered risk communication and a practical, validated symbol template. The implementation of this ISO-compliant design by regulatory bodies and manufacturers has the potential to yield measurable reductions of accidental-ingestion incidents globally.