Semantic distance as a critical factor in icon design for in-car infotainment systems

Silvennoinen, Johanna; Kujala, Tuomo; Jokinen, Jussi

doi:10.1016/j.apergo.2017.07.014

Cited by 36 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…This tool bar contained both navigation and information icons and some respondents could not distinguish between them. This appears to reinforce research [40], which suggests that icons need to maintain 'difference'. An icon needs to be clearly distinguished from other icons in the same tool bar and be close semantically to its own function while maintaining as great a semantic distance as possible from the other icons.…”

Section: Question 3 'Does Grouping Icons In Tool Bars Make Their Measupporting

confidence: 71%

An Empirical Study of Icon Recognition in a Virtual Gallery Interface

Ashe¹,

Eardley²,

Fletcher³

2018

Adv. sci. technol. eng. syst. j.

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This paper reports on an empirical study (an extension of a pilot study) that analyses the design of icons in a German 3-D virtual art gallery interface. It evaluates the extent to which a sample of typical computer users from a range of ages, educational attainments and employments can interpret the meaning of icons from the virtual interface taken 'out of context' and 'in context'. The study assessed a sample of 21 icons representing the 'action', 'information' and 'navigation' functions of the virtual interface using a new Icon Recognition Testing method (IRT) developed by the researchers from existing usability test methods. The Icon Recognition Rate (IRR) of the icons was calculated and they were classified as 'identifiable', 'mediocre' or 'vague' in a novel and useful classification system. The IRT results show that the IRR of almost a quarter of the icons was below the 'identifiable' standard, which could seriously compromise the usability of a virtual interface. A comparison is made, using textual and thematic analysis, between the participants' understanding of the icons' meaning in and out of context and of the effect of positioning icons in relation to their virtual surroundings and of grouping them in tool bars. From the findings of the study, conclusions are drawn, and recommendations are made for economical icon redesign and replacement. It is suggested in the conclusions that further research is needed into how designers' conceptual models can be better matched to users' mental models in the design of virtual interfaces by bringing user profiles into the study.

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Section: Question 3 'Does Grouping Icons In Tool Bars Make Their Measupporting

confidence: 71%

An Empirical Study of Icon Recognition in a Virtual Gallery Interface

Ashe¹,

Eardley²,

Fletcher³

2018

Adv. sci. technol. eng. syst. j.

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“…A number of interaction studies have been conducted on infotainment systems. Various infotainment systems have been studied, such as touch buttons (Crundall et al, 2016;Feng et al, 2018;Kim et al, 2014;Suh & Ferris, 2019), overall user interface (UI) elements (Hua & Ng, 2010;Naujoks et al, 2019;Pankok & Kaber, 2018), icons/symbols (Silvennoinen et al, 2017), screen position (Kuiper et al, 2018), layout (Kim et al, 2015;Li, Chen et al, 2017), sound effects (Larsson & Niemand, 2015), gestures (Graichen et al, 2019;Parada-Loira et al, 2014), and modality (Gaffar & Kouchak, 2017).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of Touch Button Interface on In-Vehicle Information Systems Usability

Jung

Park

et al. 2021

International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction

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We analyzed the button input method of infotainment systems as part of the in-vehicle information system (IVIS) interface and related research. As IVIS becomes more complex and the need for drivervehicle interaction increases, so does the potential risk that accompanies driver input. In this study, we propose to analyze the influence of the touch button shape, background, button and text color combination, and the presence/absence of a button border on the usability of the button input operation, which has not been studied before. Thus, participants were made to perform a button press operation in various combined conditions in a driving simulator. For keypads of the same diagonal length, we recommend a square-shaped touch keypad. In addition, the use of an edge and a specific color combination has a positive effect on the overall task performance and user satisfaction. These results are expected to be useful in the development of effective IVIS information display and input.

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“…In general, when designers create an icon, three icon characteristics need to be taken into consideration: visual complexity, concreteness, and semantic distance ( Garcia, Badre, & Stasko, 1994 ; McDougall, Curry, & de Bruijin, 1999 ; Silvennoinen, Kujala, & Jokinen, 2017 ). To date, numerous studies investigated the effects of these icon characteristics on visual search performance: people responded more quickly and more accurately to simple icons than complex icons ( McDougall, de Bruijin, & Curry, 2000 ), users were more efficient at understanding concrete icons compared with abstract icons ( Rogers & Oborne, 1987 ; Stammers & Hoffman, 1991 ), and icons with close semantic distance were easier to identify ( Goonetilleke, Shih, On, & Fritsch, 2001 ; McDougall, Curry, & de Bruijin, 2001 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Users’ Familiarity With the Objects Depicted in Icons on the Cognitive Performance of Icon Identification

2018

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This study investigated the effects of users’ familiarity with the objects depicted in icons on the cognitive performance of icon identification. First, without knowing the specific semantic information of icons, 20 participants were required to search for target icons among visually similar distractors for 3-hour-long training sessions across 1 week, during which their familiarity with different icons was manipulated by differential exposure frequencies. Half of the icons were presented 10 times more often than the other half. Subsequently, participants’ abilities to recall corresponding semantic information when cued with associated target icons were tested after they had learned all the icons. The results showed that, in both the visual search task and the semantic information recall task, participants performed significantly better when the icons were more familiar. Importantly, the effects of icon complexity in the visual search task diminished as participants became familiar with the icons, and the beneficial effects of familiarity in the semantic information recall task were larger when the icons were complex. These findings have practical implications for icon design. When creating new icons for time critical user interfaces, icons should be kept as simple as possible and employ familiar, commonly used, graphics.

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Semantic distance as a critical factor in icon design for in-car infotainment systems

Cited by 36 publications

References 36 publications

An Empirical Study of Icon Recognition in a Virtual Gallery Interface

An Empirical Study of Icon Recognition in a Virtual Gallery Interface

Effect of Touch Button Interface on In-Vehicle Information Systems Usability

Effects of Users’ Familiarity With the Objects Depicted in Icons on the Cognitive Performance of Icon Identification

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