[puzzledobserver]

I agree that over-reliance on pictograms frequently causes confusion.

I remember reading an article some time ago about European vs North American traffic signs. The article was praising the European system that relies more heavily on icons over the North American system which is more text-heavy. I can't remember the details now, but I remember disagreeing vehemently with the article.

I find many of the traffic icons (particularly the ones indicating something about parking, stopping and one-way streets) very unintuitive. I strongly prefer the text-heavy signage that I see in the US.

[marcosdumay]

People literally take courses on the meaning of the traffic icons.

That's why they are not confusing. If people take courses on the meaning of the icons on your software's menu, and you need to save every millisecond from them recognizing the items, that's the way to go.

If both don't apply to you, you should do something different.

[lucumo]

It's not really accurate to call them the "European system". These signs are used in many countries. Which also immediately tells you why icons are more useful than text: language barriers.

Where the US is one big area with a single language, that's not the case in the rest of the world. Processing words in a foreign language takes longer than just seeing the same traffic signs in a slight variation.

As for intuitiveness. I don't know, I kind of subscribe to the notion that the only intuitive interface is the nipple. Everything else is learned. What people call intuitive is just familiarity. The traffic signs are easy to get familiar with if you grow up with them. A systems-minded (or traffic-interested) kid can easily learn the meaning of most traffic signs long before they can read fast enough.

[int_19h]

The "European system" is an international convention (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Sign...), and the advantages of it is that the meaning of the signs is the same no matter which country you're driving in.

Yes, it does mean that you have to learn those meanings as part of your driver ed. When you get your license, the theory exam covers that.

[numpad0]

They have to have pictograms in Europe because of things like emergency stop buttons marked "NOT" in Germany[0], on top of having dozen different languages. They need a system that is deliberately disconnected from languages, ideally but optionally corrected for biases.

North America can just get away with text labels because en_US is dominant in NA and learning curve for HMIs in English is flat as it gets.

0: Naturally, means emergency. If you think that's odd, English "emergency" is also just "arising" if taken literal. Emerging what?