Human communication based on icons in crisis environments

Abstract

In recent years, we have developed an icon-based communication interface to represent concepts and ideas. Users can create messages to communicate with others using a spatial arrangement of visual symbols. We deployed our icon-based interface in a serious game environment of a disaster and rescue simulator, which is capable of simulating real disaster situations using information from human user observers' reports. To support faster interaction, we designed a highly adaptive interface for optimizing the next icon look up. Inspired by the Fitaly keyboard, the system rearranges the icons menu's layout dynamically to minimize the searching time. Users are able to find their desired icons fast since the next icon selection is most likely to be one that is (on or) around the center. Our user tests showed that the developed iconbased interface could serve as a communication mediator. The experimental results also indicated that the Fitaly-based interface allowed for much faster and easier icon finding than the hierarchical menu. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.