Guessability of U.S. pharmaceutical pictograms in Iranian prospective users

Proceso de evaluación de pictogramas: Catálogo de señalización accesible andaluz

Todas las personas necesitan apoyarse en elementos del contexto para desenvolverse por los entornos de manera autónoma. Esta necesidad se concreta en apoyos específicos cuando las personas tienen dificultades en comprensión permanentes o circunstanciales. Para que un contexto sea accesible universal y cognitivamente se emplean pictogramas para identificar los entornos. Estos pictogramas constituyen una señalética que debe ser validada por procesos estandarizados como describe la Normativa ISO-9186. El objetivo del estudio fue ampliar la base de pictogramas disponibles para la señalización de edificios y evaluar su diseño accesible. Los datos se recogieron por entrevista online y por formulario autocompletado online, en dos fases, la evaluación de la comprensibilidad y la translucidez, así como la calidad perceptual de los pictogramas. Un total de 1462 personas evaluaron la comprensión de los pictogramas y 270 su calidad perceptiva. Dicha muestra incluye participantes de diferentes colectivos y perfiles cognitivos. Se evaluaron 151 pictogramas y fueron 55 los seleccionados por cumplir criterios de comprensión, translucidez y calidad perceptiva. Este resultado supone una contribución relevante a las bases de pictogramas de uso público y privado existentes y aporta recursos señaléticos validados que pueden beneficiar a todas las personas facilitando la accesibilidad cognitiva en los espacios.

Effects of traffic sign design and personal characteristics on the usability of traffic signs

BACKGROUND: Previous researchers examined the effects of either drivers’ personal characteristics or traffic sign design features on the usability of traffic signs. Their research indicated a connection existed between personal characteristics and usability and between design features and usability. OBJECTIVES: The focus of this study was to investigate which personal characteristics of drivers and which features of traffic sign design affect traffic sign usability the most. METHODS: The study was conducted in three stages. In the first stage, the participants filled out a questionnaire designed to record each driver’s personal characteristics. In the second stage, a System Usability Scale (SUS) was used to evaluate the subjective usability of traffic signs. The SUS had 10 statements that participants (N = 386) scored on a 5-point Likert-type scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree. In the third stage, these participants assigned from 0 to 100 points to 20 signs based on participant perception of the five design features of familiarity, concreteness, simplicity, meaningfulness, and semantic distance. RESULTS: The results showed that four of the five personal characteristics studied (age, education level, possession of a driving license, and formal driving experience) correlated significantly with traffic sign usability. The exception was gender, which did not correlate significantly. Additionally, it was found that the five traffic sign design features correlated in varying degrees of significance with each other and with specific traffic signs. CONCLUSIONS: Traffic sign usability depends mostly both on driver education level and age group and on the design feature of meaningfulness. These findings have implications for how drivers should be trained and how signs should be designed.