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'In every study that considered the question'
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- DeepHorus
A torrential-rain drive revealed a widespread safety problem: many cars lacked tail lights in poor visibility. The issue was not simply forgetfulness, the driver found. It stems from confusing light-control iconography. This matters because unlit vehicles are nearly invisible in heavy rain.
Modern cars offer regular driving lights for night and limited visibility, plus parking lights that activate only front lights at half brightness. Parking mode leaves tail lights off. The dashboard feedback is identical in both modes: interior gauges illuminate and front lights rise. In daytime rain, drivers cannot see whether their tail lights are on.
Controls use similar symbols. Two lights facing away mean parking lights; one light pointing down means low beams. On a rental car's stalk, a lightbulb indicated the main setting, a wavy line meant fog lights, and arrows covered high beams and turn signals. The interface favors motor memory over first-time clarity.
Many vehicles now include an AUTO option, but the driver did not trust it to account for daylight rain. The likely error was choosing the wrong light mode with good intentions. This subtle design flaw can make cars invisible to others.
A parallel shift is occurring in consumer technology. Apple has embraced more iconography on buttons and screens. On U.S. keyboards, symbols replaced legends for Tab, Caps Lock, Shift, Fn, Enter, Return, and Delete. Across iOS 18, 26, and 27, labels have given way to icons.
In Notes, Return became ↵, Done became a checkmark, and back lost its label. AirDrop turned Done into a close box; Cancel morphed into ×, beside another ×. Search became a loupe, and Edit became a paint icon.
These changes recall Dmitry Fadeyev's essay "False simplicity." What looks simple can be ambiguous. As interfaces replace words with symbols, clarity may suffer—on screens and on rain-soaked roads.
