signs

Treemapping Your Way to Healthier Food Choices

August 2, 2011
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Renee Walker, MFA in Design, came up with an innovative use of treemaps to provide nutrition information – winning the Rethink the Food Label contest. Can you imagine the horror of food companies once they realize how much of their treemap has to say SUGAR? This visualization is certainly easier than the rule of thumb I was taught: “If sugar is [...]

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Color Coded Elevator Buttons – Wow!

November 4, 2010
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Human Factors.. it’s just common sense, right? Oh dear. Found on Robyn’s Posterous.

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More usability in the news: CAPS LOCK OFF ON STREET SIGNS

November 2, 2010
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It is unfortunate I only found the NY Post as a source for this, but it is still an interesting moment of research-to-practice. From the article: The Capital of the World is going lower-case. Federal copy editors are demanding the city change its 250,900 street signs — such as these for Perry Avenue in The Bronx — from the all-caps style [...]

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11 feet 8 inches

September 2, 2010

A train trestle in Durham, NC has a clearance of 11’8″. The typical height of a large rental truck ranges from 11’6″ (don’t bounce!) to 13’6″. How often do you think about clearance when driving? Do you think you could adjust to thinking about it 100% of the time in your rental truck? I’ve seen parking garages that have a [...]

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Code Chartreuse – “Too many codes”

August 9, 2010
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Enjoy memorizing this hospital sign! How about just announcing the issue rather than matching it first with a color? For example: “Attention, tornado!” seems like it would be effective. Elopement, by the way, means a patient with Alzheimer’s needs to be located. That makes “purple” a code within a code (and makes me want to watch Inception again). This is [...]

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Unusable Signs – Biking

July 20, 2010
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I took a snap of this sign while on a bike ride yesterday. It appears to be a map of the bike trail. But there are a few problems… The sign clearly points to the right. The paved bike path continues straight ahead (and turns left in about 200 feet). That little green triangle in the upper left says “North.” [...]

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Electric Scooters and their Warnings: A Guest Post by Kim Wolfinbarger

June 16, 2009
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Electric shopping carts are common in large grocery stores. Essential for users with mobility impairments, they are also helpful for pregnant women, elderly shoppers, and other who have trouble walking long distances. A few months ago, my grandfather overturned such a cart in a parking lot and broke his hip. Interested in what might have caused the accident, I examined [...]

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Watch out for Un-Equalsteppings!

June 10, 2009

Reader Joe C. sent in this unusual warning on a door. It was on the entry door to one of the screens at a local cinema. The un-equalsteppings just turned out to be a slope! Not sure why they couldn’t of just told me it was a slope.

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It’s Right There, Right on your Left

February 16, 2009

Found this sign at a rock climbing gym, then watched three groups of people do the opposite of what the sign requests, despite reading it.

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Parking garage ticket machine warning

October 2, 2008

I’m at the airport waiting to board a flight.  Here is a funny warning message that greeted me on the parking garage ticket-dispensing machine:

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Vigilante Warnings

September 6, 2008

I snapped this picture near NCSU today. Looks like the garbage workers or apartment dwellers decided to take matters into their own hands.

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You are what you eat (And I’m about a B-)

August 26, 2008

Like many people, I use heuristics when choosing between food products. My algorithm goes something like this: What’s the lowest unit price? 25 cents per ounce vs. 40 cents per ounce? Pick up the lowest Look at the saturated fat RDI If reasonable, look at ingredients Is list too long to read in 3 seconds? If yes, pick up next [...]

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Processing negatives

May 21, 2008

Following signs to the Raleigh SPCA, we took a wrong turn. From the looks of things, we were not the first to do so. Of course, you only see these signs once you are on the wrong property. They might have avoided all troubles by putting a sign along the way that pointed to the SPCA.

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