Ergonomic guidelines for the design of pictorial information

The widespread implementation of new Telematic information systems increases the need of ergonomic recommendations and guidelines to be set up for pictorial information design. In order to fulfil this objective, data have been gathered on recognition and understandability of symbolic information: optimisation of the design for graphical representation of an object and identification of strategies adopted by users to build up links between components of complex pictograms. Among other things, it has been shown that attributes of the displayed object can be more or less salient according to the functions they had for this object, in addition to the effect of the well-known perceptual characteristics. Furthermore, the different strategies developed by users in order to set up the meaning of complex graphical messages, by running linkage processes between the various elements, have been identified. Recommendations have to be adapted to a wide range of the population, so heterogeneity of the performance due to age has been taken into account. This aspect is all tl-le more important since this approach is developed in a prenormalisation framework. Relevance to industry Many messages are given under pictograms, allowing international communication and offering compactness of the display surface. Poorly designed graphical displays might be misinterpreted, leading to unsafe situations. A deep analysis of ergonomical rules underlying the improvement of recognition and understanding leads to recommendations directly usable by designers and manufacturers. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.