COVE recently partnered on a project sponsored by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) focused on how we can utilize visual literacy to improve hazard recognition in “design for safety” processes. EPRI’s Occupational Health and Safety Advisory Committee members identified hazard recognition as a priority research area and expressed interest in improving hazard recognition in design for safety practice using visual literacy. As EPRI highlighted, research shows that decisions made during project planning and design influence the safety of those who construct the design as well as those who maintain and operate the new facility/infrastructure after it is built. The better job we do at the design stage the safer the final product will be.

John Shober, Principal Technical Leader at EPRI, shares his experience of going through COVE's Visual Literacy Foundations of Visual Literacy workshop and describes how this new approach "provides a different set of skills to be able to look at the overall safety environment and be able to identify risks in a different way." Watch the full video below.