Visual and auditory icons for intelligent building

The current study propose the design and evaluation of visual and auditory icons for a smart house. Scenario based design and hierarchical task analysis were used to derive function names for smart buildings. Participants (in group) are required to design icons in 7 formats (image related, concept related, semiabstract, arbitrary, word, abbreviation, and combined) for useful function names. In total, 315 icons of 45 functions are developed in this study. Ranking test and paired comparison test would be conducted respectively for the evaluation of visual and auditory icons. The results can be applied to the design and evaluation of visual and auditory icons in other contexts.