Assistive Listening Knowledge Base
  • Standards technical report (symbol design and user testing)

ETSI TR 101 767 V1.1.1: Human Factors (HF); Symbols to identify telecommunications facilities for deaf and hard of hearing people; Development and evaluation

From https://assistivelisteningknowledgebase.org/evidence/etsi-2000-tr-101-767/ · record checked 9 October 2026

  • ETSI Technical Committee Human Factors (HF)
  • European Telecommunications Standards Institute

Standards body (ETSI; the trials in Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium and Finland were organised with a university department, a research institute and associations of deaf and hard of hearing people in each country)

Summary

ETSI's account of how the symbols in EN 301 462 were designed and tested with deaf, hard of hearing and hearing people in four European countries.

Key findings

  • Reports that, before the work, the most common symbol for deaf and hard of hearing people was the general one, frequently combined with the letter T to denote inductive coupling for hearing aids, or with text in a particular language.
  • In the main trials in Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium and Finland, about 216 respondents in four groups (prelingually deaf, postlingually deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing people such as carers) matched candidate symbols from several design families to described facilities. Coupling symbols were shown only to the hard of hearing and hearing groups.
  • The candidate chosen for inductive coupling was identified correctly 43% of the time, against 55% for the best-scoring alternative; the candidate chosen for general facilities was identified correctly 38% of the time, the highest of the three leading candidates.
  • Reports that coupling was the most confusing topic: inductive coupling to hearing aids was understood by those who used it, while respondents had difficulty telling infrared and radio coupling symbols apart, which the authors relate to their lack of experience of those links.
  • After the trials, symbol standards committees (IEC SC3) asked for the symbols to be redrawn in line with existing symbol standards, and the redrawn versions were adopted in EN 301 462. The report describes no test of the redrawn versions.
  • In its pilot trial, inductive, infrared and radio coupling was the most confusing issue, which the authors put down to people's lack of experience with infrared and radio coupling of hearing aids (section 8.4.2).

Limits

Small groups in each country, recruited through deaf and hard of hearing organisations, with recognition tested in paper questionnaires rather than in buildings. Telephony facilities only; the project brochure reproduced in the report scheduled the main trials for April to June 1998, and the report gives no exact trial dates. The respondent total is summed here from the report's table by country and group.

Read the original

www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_tr/101700_101799/101767/01.01.01_60/tr_101767v010101p.pdf

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Cited in

Cite this source

ETSI Technical Committee Human Factors (HF). ETSI TR 101 767 V1.1.1: Human Factors (HF); Symbols to identify telecommunications facilities for deaf and hard of hearing people; Development and evaluation. European Telecommunications Standards Institute. January 2000. https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_tr/101700_101799/101767/01.01.01_60/tr_101767v010101p.pdf (accessed 9 October 2026).

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