The sense and nonsense of icons and pictograms

In PLAIN's first webinar, Charlotte van Hooijdonk presented her research on the comprehensibility of icons and pictograms, exploring whether they would make for more inclusive communication in the Netherlands and Flanders (Belgium).

At the start of the corona crisis, governments needed to communicate about new measures that citizens had to adhere to. Icons — highly simplified images that express a message — could help optimise communication with groups for whom Dutch is not the mother tongue. But is that true?

The research, requested by the Municipality of The Hague and the City of Ghent, and on behalf of the Taalunie, provided some results that were striking and sometimes startling.