Product Graphical User Interfaces: A Study for the Meaning and Usability on Automobile Dashboard User Interfaces in Indi
Product graphical user interfaces are the portals for the human–machine interaction. In our day-to-day lives, we come across several products with graphical user interfaces as the way to interact with them. These interfaces are designed to serve the sever
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Product Graphical User Interfaces: A Study for the Meaning and Usability on Automobile Dashboard User Interfaces in Indian Context Venkateshwarlu Varala and Pradeep Yammiyavar
Abstract Product graphical user interfaces are the portals for the human–machine interaction. In our day-to-day lives, we come across several products with graphical user interfaces as the way to interact with them. These interfaces are designed to serve the several user groups across the globe. While the purpose is to communicate the meaning in the best way possible and creating a bond with their users, yet we see many interfaces irritate us at some point of time and become ambiguous to operate. There could be several reasons for such experiences. Through the product semantic studies and an experiment on different Indian user groups this paper tried to explore the meaning related issues, usability problems of automobile dashboard interfaces in the Indian scenario. Keywords Product semantics interface
Semiotics Meaning Usability Graphical user
1 Introduction Product Interfaces of tangible products serves as a communication bridge between products and the user. They evoke meanings in users in a way they understand, and thereby creating a successful interaction, creating a bond [1]. To design a meaningful interface, designers make use of different features and attributes of the product [2]. For instance in a tangible product interface, a switch to turn on/off with specific color, a handle to hold with different shape, and in case of a graphical user interfaces a set of metaphors and visual cues are used in two dimensional space. V. Varala (&) P. Yammiyavar Department of Design, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati 781039, Assam, India e-mail: [email protected] P. Yammiyavar e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018 G.G. Ray et al. (eds.), Ergonomics in Caring for People, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4980-4_33
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V. Varala and P. Yammiyavar
Studies indicate that semantics of visual cues and metaphors vary across strata, within cultural groups and may have a contributing role in communicating the meaning, increasing the bond between a user and utility value of a particular group. While the purpose of any graphical user interface to convey the meaning, yet there are many graphical user interfaces (GUI) of various products in the Indian market which are failing in this regard. A pilot study conducted with existing electricity meters among various Indian users reveals that the users find them ambiguous and most of the information does not make any sense to them and less usable. In light of literature, it is suspected that the possible reasons might be disconnects between the intended and evoked meanings due to the non-consideration of cultural and contextual usage variation of various user groups, and lack of GUI design heuristics for various Indian contexts. A further literature survey followed by an experiment was conducted to know the reasons for failure of GUIs in communi
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