Revising Public Information Symbols for Hearing-Impaired People

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that hearing-impaired people have difficulty understanding several public information symbols. In this study, we show how public information symbols should be improved for easy understanding by hearing-impaired people. By incorporating the opinions of hearing-impaired students specializing in design courses, we develop ideas to revise public information symbols that are difficult for hearing-impaired people to understand. Next, we assess the comprehensibility of these ideas among both hearing-impaired students and students with normal hearing. Based on the evaluation results, five types of amendments are proposed. It is thought that hearing-impaired children and students have difficulty grasping abstract concepts. Our results show that hearing-impaired students are more likely than students with normal hearing to prefer more descriptive signs rather than more symbolic signs consisting of few shape elements.