Citation

Hawkins JS, Reising JM, Woodson BK, Bertling SJ. Proc. Hum. Factors Ergon. Soc. Annu. Meet. 1984; 28(2): 118-122.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1984, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/154193128402800205

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A multifunction switch is one way to solve the diminishing real estate problem in the modern cockpit. This study looked at pictorial coding of such a switch. Twelve different symbols were used, each with three levels of complexity and two levels of polarity. An error rate count was taken for subjects under both a naive and learned 50 millisecond exposure condition. This study demonstrated that there were three classes of symbols. These were: intuitive to the naive subject, intuitive to a learned subject, and non-intuitive, even to a learned subject. Complexity levels had a significant effect in only three of the twelve symbols. Polarity differences also had a significant effect in only three of the twelve symbols, although they were a different three. The overall conclusion is that the majority of symbols were intuitive after learning and robust to changes in complexity and polarity.

Language: en