Research Of Vehicle Icon For Warning Signal And Instructions Device Based On Ergonomics

Icon plays an important role in the automotive man-machine interface. The variety of instructions device and warning signals mostly delivering their representation of meaning to the driver through the different icons. The meaning icon expressing unambiguous or not directly impact on driving safety. The study is based on ergonomics knowledge, evaluates icons in the interior of car which are involved of the China National Standard《GB 4094-1999》, in order to explore the clarity of the icons. And improved some of the unreasonable icons of experimental results. The work of the study are as follows:(1) Methods which are commonly used at home and abroad on icon are used to evaluate the icons in article, which are direct method, the reaction time test and the subjective evaluation method. The direct method obtained that correct selection rate of each icon and correct selection rate of the whole icons are 66%; result of the reaction time test is that the average response time of each icon and of the whole icons are 2.86s; it can be known that people measured by are quite satisfied of the whole icons through the subjective evaluation method. Besides, experimental results show that part of the icons inside car of our country such as parking lamp icon, Engine warm-icon, engine coolant temperature indicator Icon, have some problems, such as some are identified for too long, some are of ambiguous expression, some are similar to some other icon, etc. So these icons need to be further studied and improved.(2) Experimental datas of reaction time test method and subjective evaluation method are evaluated form mean value, variance, mathematical expectation three sides to evaluate the icons. The icon evaluation system is designed using Matlab software, and used combined with icon evaluation criteria based on the semantic differential method. The result shows that 11 icons have the score lower than 4, which means that only half of people measured by can understand the meaning of them. Incorrect meaning of these 11 icons and the experimental data are summarized.(3) Interaction process of user and icon is explored from the perspective of cognitive psychology, then design principles of icon is put forward based on the experimental results and related information, that icon should be of simple form and clear boundary during the design and improve process.(4)In the last part of paper,6 unreasonable icons of experimental results which are lighting and signaling devices icons, engine warm-icon, the choke control parts and signal icons have been improved, and evaluated the new icons and initial ones form six degrees, which are familiarity of the icon, learnability, memory accessibility, associability, symbolization, the typicality of graphic elements and conciseness. Finally the 6 new icons are more or less improved in all the 5 evaluating aspects except the conciseness aspect.