Comprehension and appropriateness of complex mobile pictographs for crisis communication

Nuwan Waidyanatha () and Lutz Frommberger ()
Additional contact information
Nuwan Waidyanatha: Sahana Software Foundation—Research and Action
Lutz Frommberger: Sahana Software Foundation—Research and Action

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2022, vol. 114, issue 1, No 24, 583-604

Abstract: Abstract In crisis situations, illiterates and people with other linguistic challenges are unable to understand text messages to inform or be informed of a situation. Pictographic interfaces have been proposed as a solution for empowering these marginalized and vulnerable populations, including elderly, people with disabilities, and foreigners. In this paper, we follow up on previous work and investigate the comprehensibility and appropriateness of prototypical complex alerting and reporting pictographs. We present results of a field study with illiterate people in Sri Lanka and the Philippines. We show that complex representations can very well be understood with respect to incident and severity, especially if context objects are shown. Additionally, we identify several aspects where further research is needed. We discuss the findings and propose further steps toward designing pictograph-based communication, especially on mobile devices.

Keywords: Crisis; Communication; Illiteracy; Situational awareness; Pictograms; Icons (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-022-05402-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:114:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s11069-022-05402-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1007/s11069-022-05402-y

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().