We Keep on Learning, Right?

Have you ever realized how little you know about so many things? I learned something today about my car -- and communication. 

The picture below shows the little orange icon that popped up on my car's dashboard halfway through a 50-minute drive this morning on the highway. It didn't blink but it also didn't go away ... and it scared me because I had no idea what it was. 

And honestly, with the exclamation mark in the middle, it looked like a punctuation mark. 

Danger! It seemed to say. But from what? Why? 

When I got there, I took a picture of it and showed it to my friend, who immediately knew what it was "saying": 

Low. Tire. Pressure. 

Uh huh. Doesn't that icon just scream "Low Tire Pressure" to you? No, it surely did not to me either. 

If it's something important, why wouldn't the designers make these icons look more like what they represent? Couldn't the words "tire pressure" or "low tire" have been used? 

George Bernard Shaw's saying fits here: "The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." 

Lesson learned: The way we see things is not always the way others do. It's important to check ...