Week 4 Studio: Reading icons cold

Students guess the meaning of unlabelled dashboard icons before checking their guesses against the ISO standard

15 March 2027

Before the studio#

No preparation beyond having started your Alert Audit draft (due this Friday) — bring whatever catalogue of icons you’ve gathered so far, even incomplete.

In the studio#

Idris hands out a sheet of dashboard icons stripped of captions and brand context — some ISO-standard, some manufacturer-specific oddities, mixed in without saying which is which. Working alone first, everyone writes down what each icon means and how confident they are. Only after guesses are locked in does the group compare notes against the real ISO reference sheet. The point isn’t getting them right — it’s noticing which icons almost everyone reads correctly on sight, and which ones only the people who already own that model car get right, because the shape alone carries no information without prior exposure.

Afterwards#

Bring the same lens to your own Alert Audit draft: for each icon on your chosen dashboard, note whether it’s legible cold or only legible because you already know the car. Idris is available this week specifically to workshop Audit drafts before Friday’s deadline — bring a rough draft, not a finished one.