The bottom line is a series of arrows pointing to the left door.
(apologies for the poor quality photograph)
©2003-2008 Russell Wilson. All Rights Reserved. Powered by Wordpress and hosted by (mt) Media Temple
The bottom line is a series of arrows pointing to the left door.
(apologies for the poor quality photograph)
©2003-2008 Russell Wilson. All Rights Reserved. Powered by Wordpress and hosted by (mt) Media Temple
It’s a door. People know to use doors.
Normally, you say what not to use, surely…
(Don’t call me Shirley)
Which door? Left or right? Maybe we should read that small print on the bottom.
The text says “this” door when it really means “that” door, i.e. the arrows indicate the the door to the left of the sign should be used. The sign is misleading, because the most important information (the arrows pointing left) is not appropriately noticeable
DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself)
Ok, it’s somewhat a stretch, but works for me.
Accessibility. No audio or braille version for blind users.
I apologize for the quality of the picture. The line at the bottom is actually a series of arrows pointing to the left door. The sign is saying “don’t use this door (the one to the left)”
A possible GUI analogy of this would be a label saying “OK >>>” and then having a button with no text on it which was meant to be clicked.
Another possibility is rather than greying out a button the button says “please use this button>>>>” pointing at the cancel.
Its not a basic usability problem but a very strange way to achieve disabling a function by having disabled function point at the only remaining option.
They shouldn’t be pointing at the door to use, they would be better off just putting the sign on the left door with no arrows.
Plus, the arrows are really small compared to the type and they don’t catch the eye at all (assuredly they aren’t even visible in the distance) so people will probably just bump on the wrong door.
Poor affordance, the suggestion of how to interact with door is misleading.
It’s like having a giant label over a button saying “click here”
(sound familiar?)
There are tons of signs that have terrible affordances.
I was at an Ikea Store and the parking sign said
“All Parking
No Trucks”
Go figure!
This violets the “support workflow” of the Nielsen Usability principle since the wording of the sign does coincide with the tiny arrows as indicated at the bottom of the sign. Basically, the wording contradicts the image.
Great info.Very good article.Bookmarked your blog plz keep it up