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Pictograms
Pictograms are a special kind of symbol. Symbols, of course, are a kind of visual shorthand. They are usual simple shapes or drawings that stand for something else. For instance, a dollar sign is a typographic symbol that stands for a unit of money. A dollar sign is an abstract symbol. It doesn't particularly look like a piece of money, but over time people learn what it looks like and what it stands for.
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Pictograms are symbols where a very simple picture is supposed to stand for something. It could stand for a place, an activity, or even an idea. The less detail the pictogram has, the easier it is to remember it and to recognize it. A good pictogram does not attempt to be realistic. For instance, a pictogram of a telephone is usually shown as a traditional handset, with a hand grip in the middle and a rounded protrusion on each end, one to speak into and one for listening to the other people. Nowadays, phones can have many different shapes and sizes, but we still use the same handset pictogram to symbolize all phones. The gender pictograms, or symbols which stand for a man and a woman, usually used to symbolize public restrooms, do not really look like people. They look more like simple figures a child might cut out of folded paper. The head is completely round, has no hair, and is not attached to the body. Two sticks represent the arms and hands, and two sticks are the legs. Besides stick legs, the woman has a triangular skirt. There are no hands, fingers or feet and the faces have no features.
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The ADA Guidelines have very few regulations for most pictograms. Pictograms should contrast with their background, dark on light or light on dark. They should be made of non-glare materials. The other rules about pictograms come into play when pictograms are used to identify permanent rooms or spaces. Most of the time, that refers to the gender pictograms that identify restrooms. If a restroom is identified by a pictogram, the pictogram has to be in a six inch high space. That means the pictogram should be fairly large, to fill up most of the space and to make it easy to see. Under the six inch high space which contains the pictogram, there must be raised characters and Braille which also identify the room or space. After all, if a pictogram were the only identification, people who had no usable vision could not identify the room. Raising the pictogram doesn't do much good, because the pictograms don't feel at all like the objects they stand for.
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Although pictograms can be a big help to people who, for one reason or another, cannot read, there are no required pictograms except for the Symbols of Accessibility.
Click here to read about Symbols of Accessibility |
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