User perception on public payphone icons and their representation in Malaysia

Malaysia is a member of ASEAN´s universal service obligation (USO) initiative by the International Telecommunication Union´s attempt to balance the rural and urban telecommunication accessibility in the region. The first prerogative in the Malaysian USO was the provision of public telecommunication services and accessibility. Works to allocate public telecommunication access and equipment have begun all over the country since 2007. The interface of a local public payphone comprise of the phone receiver, keypad dial area, coin/card insert-return areas, liquid crystal display unit, and the main housing area itself. The main operating interface between a user and the payphone is the icon as it is designed to represent a certain function of the device. A survey with 160 respondents was collected to study the icons used in relation to the public payphone´s functions, and to determine the level of user comprehension. As Malaysia has diverse cultural, ethnic and social values, it is the challenge of the present ergonomics study to highlight the commonly preferred icons together with its intended functions on the public payphones. The results show that text-only icons and representations are recommended for certain functions as compared to graphic-only icons in the Malaysian context.