This is Broken

I… I don’t know what to do?

Fences are Impassable (via lot49a)

“With these new 10 foot fences, our stairs will be TOTALLY SAFE from intruders.”

Crossing is Directional (via lot49a)

On the right, there is a sign saying you can’t cross the street from here. On the left is a person WAITING FOR THE PEDESTRIAN LIGHT.

It’s a simple explanation, the sign applies to one direction but not the other. The thing is that this isn’t a corner, it’s a gently curving section. And you have to have approached from this side of the pole to even see the sign. Not pictured is the bus terminal and mall to the right - the direction from which most people will reach this spot without seeing the sign.

The fix is easy. Paint a “don’t cross sign” directly on the road, exactly where you don’t want people to cross.

Buttons are Shiny (via lot49a)

After complaining about the bad buttons at Ottawa’s crosswalks, I feel that I should highlight this example of good design. This is a button with an LED that lights up when any of the 4 buttons at this crossing have been pressed. The LED stays lit until the traffic light changes. The button itself can actually be pressed, so it’s good feedback all around.

There are a number of these buttons nearby. About half of them aren’t working, which offers some clue about why the riot-proof button, that I criticized, exists.

Temperature is Relative

Neale at Five Whys evaluates poorly labelled buttons. Click the link to see what he says: Five Whys » Blog Archive » Bad Button Design

Navigation is Direct (via www.quietbabylon.com)

This is from a popular (and reasonably well funded) survey company.

Is there a good reason for the layout of the buttons, or did no one over there look at the entire screen?

Switches are Cross (via lot49a)

(God willing and the river don’t rise, the most boring photograph I will ever have taken).

This is the light switch panel on the landing of the floor where I’ve been living. Each switch controls one of four lights nearby. Clockwise from the left these are: 1.hallway, 2.landing, 3.tracklighting, 4.stairway. Guess which switches correspond to which lights?

4.stairway, 2.landing, 1.hallway, 3.tracklighting

You can’t even deduce the order by comparing which switches are up with which lights are on because some of the lights are controlled by more than one switch in the house. When I took this photo, the stairway light was off even though the switch is up. Were I to flick the switch at the bottom of the stairs, then ‘up’ would become ‘on’ again.

I’ve been living in this house for about 8 months and STILL can’t instinctively turn on the right switch when I come home.

Updating is Scary (via lot49a)

Apple is normally lauded for their excellent user experience and sleek design. Stuff “just works”. But when it comes to downloading free iPhone apps and updates in the App Store, the dialogues are confusingly wrong.

This one is for a free update to the excellent Subway Shuffle puzzle game. I moved the dialogue box over so you could see the app. When you click on the little “get update” button, the dialogue pops over top of it, hiding the price. Then the box explains that you have to click “buy” to download the app “and your credit card will be charged immediately.” WHAT?!

There is no reason that I can imagine for Apple not to have two different dialog boxes for this situation. One for paid apps and a second that makes clear that the free downloads are actually free.

Buttons are Fragile (via lot49a)

Pedestrian crosswalk buttons face an uphill usability battle. Constrained by the need to respect the rest of traffic flow, there’s no obvious causal relationship between pressing the button and an event that happens in the world.

Sometimes the light changes, sometimes it waits and then changes, sometimes it changes even if you don’t press the button. There is a running debate among my friends as to whether the buttons have any function at all.

On top of that, they face a whole lot of wear and tear from both legitimate use, frustrated use, and outright vandalism.

This button, outside Ottawa’s City Hall, seems to have been designed by someone terrified that it might end up in a riot zone. It has no moving parts - the metal plate you can see is fixed firmly in place. Touching it results in … nothing.

There is no press or click, no light comes on, no sound is made and the street light certainly doesn’t change on command. Touching the button resulted in no feedback whatsoever to indicate that the thing was working. Maybe it wasn’t.

Retribution is Indiscriminate (via lot49a)

In an effort to combat spambots on Twitter, they set up a @spam account to make it easy to report spammers. Here’s how: ‘Report Twitter spam by sending us an @reply with the suspicious user name: “@spam @spam123”’

A year later, they updated with the above advice. RT meant “retweet” which is the practice of reposting a message.

If your net is cast so wide that you are likely to catch legitimate users for the crime of TRYING TO HELP YOU FIGHT THE PROBLEM, then you need to reconfigure your net.