User Rating of Control systems and Visual Language

on the car dashboard No. of interviewees: 30 All figures are scores in percentage (out of 100)

Blower Controls - ‘OFF’ as a reference works as a

comforting factor
Air Circulation - Closer to the silhouette of the car

Air Conditioning
- Level of abstraction

54 - Cross-culture differences
- Text works better because 31
30
69 of abbreviation
49
52
28 Air Circulation
Cooling Controls - No ambiguity for intermediate
controls
57 - Learning curve high
- Requires hit & trial
- Involves a lot of nested information without
- Regulator works better than slider which the complete meaning is impossible to
both visually as well as functionally understand
33
36
ENGINE
FAULT
42 Engine Fault
66 56 The data shown here is compiled from the
- Image representative of the actual scores that users gave to the individual

77
controls/icons/icon sets. The results show a

51 object but no familiarity of the

masses with the actual object
- Text easy to understand
representative opinion of the people in the
form of the aggregate (%ge) scores.

Compiled by:
Aditya Dipankar
Gaurang Gupta
IID ‘09, NID