Surreal Notions

Funny how the “real world” presents us with bad design all of the time. We usually get past it; however, there is a moment of confusion; a pause or hesitation; an element of frustration. Over time, these things add up to big frustrations. Designers call these problems fancy names like cognitive friction or poor modality. Most people just know there is something wrong and frequently can’t even articulate why it’s wrong.

Theater 11 or theater 12?

Here’s a great example. I was walking into a theater about a week ago and saw this brilliant signage.

At first glance I couldn’t believe I was reading that correctly. In the space of two or three minutes, there were several comments made by people walking into the theater. Ok, I’m not counting the people I was with, because they are big geeks like me and notice these things.

I glanced at a couple theaters on the way out and the numbers are supposed to be read down, which makes the signage much more useful. All they have to do is put a vertical line between the numbers to help the eye differentiate between them.  In the case of theater 11 and theater 12, the numbers read correctly top-down or left-right. Perhaps an edge case, but pretty important for at least several hundred patrons every day.

Despite my focus on software usability, we a bombarded with bad design everyday. Wouldn’t it be great if people spent just a little more time thinking things through the rest of us could get through the day with a little less frustration? Nobody is perfect, but how many people signed off on this? The architect, the contractor, the person applying the signs, the investor(s), the manager(s), the rest of the staff, etc. etc. etc. Remember, if one person complains about something, there are probably 50 others that noticed it and just didn’t say anything.

What bad designs have you been victim to today?