Driver Understanding and Recognition of Automotive ISO Symbols

Usability of Certain Symbols Indicating Automobile Safety Status Based on Youth Assessment

“…The symbols used on automotive displays are rarely studied and not easy to find in the scientific literature. In our search for research of this kind, we discovered a technical paper [17] which had been written in 1988. This research involved only ISO-approved and designed symbols.…”

“…The names of the symbols presented in this research are horn, battery, turn signal, trunk, fuel, high beam, fan, oil, hood, low beam, temperature, w/s wipe, w/s wash, w/s wash/wipe, parking lights, rear defrost, cigarette lighter, headlamp cleaner, hazard warning, w/s defrost, master lighting, unleaded fuel only, front fog lights, choke, and rear fog lights. Authors in [17] did not classify the symbols according to their function. The only criterion for the selection of those symbols was that they were ISO-approved symbols.…”

“…The symbol with the lowest percentage of correct recognition was the symbol for rear fog lamps, with only 1.2% of participants recognizing it correctly (in the first part of the research). However, even in reference [17], which was published in cooperation with the well-known institution SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers), there is no reference to any previous paper on this topic that has been published in a journal or conference proceedings.…”

“…As it can be noticed, refs. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] did not involve dashboard symbols indicating automobile trouble and safety status.…”

The iconography of vehicle automation—a focus group study

“…ISO standardised signs (small icons) and symbols (larger images), both of which will be referred to as icons in this paper, have been commonly used to communicate messages to automobile drivers on the vehicle dashboard for many years, and the ISO aim to maximise the potential of icons through worldwide standardisation (Zwaga and Mijksenaar 2000). This can be seen to originate with the standardisation of traffic light colours in the 1920s (Priest et al 2005), which are reflected in the use of those same colours on the dashboard, through to the development of icon recommendations in the 1970s (Green 1993;Saunby et al 1988). Due to new technologies, these icons are now also being displayed on additional screens within the vehicle, commonly located in the centre of the vehicle or as a head-up display.…”