The lighting of car instrument panels : drivers' responses to five colours. Paper presented at the International Congress & Exposition, Detroit, MI, February 25 - March 1, 1985.

Author(s)
Galer, M. & Simmonds, G.R.W.
Year
Abstract

Drivers' subjective responses to five different colours of instrument panel lighting, and their ability to read the instruments accurately were measured under simulated driving conditions. The instrument panels tested were of a current production 1981 European Ford Granada design fitted into a fully trimmed Ford Granada buick. The instrument panels had five colours of filters over the back lighting lamps, BLUE/GREEN, RED, GREEN, ORANGE and YELLOW. Eighty drivers tested each of the five display colours under night-time lighting conditions. They were asked to rank the colours for ease of reading, ease of checking the speed against limits, distraction, attractiveness, general preference and choice for own car. The BLUE/GREEN, and YELLOW were all liked, with the balance clearly in favour of the BLUE/GREEN RED was not liked by many drivers and disliked by most. The colours appealed differently to different age and sex groups. There was no difference between the colours in terms of accuracy of reading the speed or deciding whether the speed was within a speed limit.

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Publication

Library number
B 25790 fo /91.1 /
Source

Warrendale, PA, Society of Automotive Engineers SAE, 1985, 8 p., 2 fig., 3 tab., 6 ref.; SAE paper No. 850328

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