The Assessment of Safety Symbol Understandability by Different Testing Methods

摘要

The paper reports an experiment on the understandability of pictorial symbols proposed for fire-safety alerting. The experiment was designed to determine the understandability of specific symbols and to assess the effects of variations in both presentation and response methods. The symbols were presented as slides, booklets, or placards. Subjects indicated their understanding of each symbol's meaning either by writing down a brief definition or by selecting the correct answer from among four alternatives. For both methods, subjects rated their confidence in the correctness of the answers. In the second phase of the experiment, subjects were given fifteen different messages, and asked to draw a symbol for each idea. Mode of symbol presentation had no effect on understandability, while the use of definition and multiple choice procedures led to generally similar conclusions. The confidence ratings provided additional information about discrepancies between the two response methods.