Evaluating the usability of control panels is becoming increasingly important to product success. In this study, the presence of stereotypes for control panel design for air conditioning system with basic functions was investigated by allowing American and Japanese participants to design their own control panels under standard conditions and the design choices such as operation sequence and button shapes were all counted. Using all the stereotypes found in the investigation a remote control for floor heating system was designed, and the remote control was evaluated through usability testing for 15 housewives and 15 elderly people without showing manuals. Results showed that this study identified significant and consistent population stereotypes for control panel design choices such as timer setting sequence. This study also found that the remote control of floor heating system with stereotypes showed significantly higher task achievement percentage than two kinds of conventional control panels in timer setting task for Japanese housewives and temperature control task for Japanese elderly people. The subjective usability evaluation by the elderly people for the remote control with stereotypes was also significantly higher than the two conventional control panels.

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