The Use of Modified Emoticon Symbols for the Designs of Traffic Warning Signs

摘要

Human error has been distinguished as the cause of traffic accident. It is influenced by a number of factors coming from the drivers who have no safety awareness, including distraction, fatigue and behavior. There needs the designs of traffic warning signs regarding to the drivers? behavior in order to communicate the inappropriate things which they must avoid. There are four kinds of designs deriving from the modified emoticon symbols depicting aggressive driver, anger driver, distract driver and fatigue driver which had been tested to respondents. They stated that those designs are quite easy to understand, enough to attract attention, quite easy to remember and sometimes regards to what they had ever undergone. The use of emoticon symbols in the traffic system would become an innovative breakthrough in communicating the instructional information and warning toward the drivers, particularly those who often experience as what these symbols convey.