Signs That Say Nothing: No: 3

More curious sign antics seen at my local railway station..

Fosta might know this one.

Signs That Say Nothing: No: 2

Another sign, well sticker, seen stuck on a one way sign.

5 what? Why is it up here and not at eye level…? I’m not short but had to take this picture with my arms raised above my head.

Signs That Say Nothing: No: 1

Modern life is full of signs that say nothing. They pepper our streets and float in and out of our day.

More often than not these signs are familiar, we recognise them, but don’t know what they mean. Some are useful like this first one, some are purely shown for legislation.

This series of posts captures these known unknowns, if you can share a comment as to what they are… awesome.

This first one is super common, and I’m enlightened by my good mate Fosta as to its purpose:

From Fosta (posted on Flickr):

“it says a fire hydrant with a 150mm pipe is located 1 metre from this sign”

I know how we can communicate our Free Range Egg…!

I do like taking pictures of ‘after-the-fact’ fixes, notes, addendum and other additions that are made to explain how to use something or the value of that something.

I saw this in a newspaper, the Breakfast Sub (King bum clogger) with a handy arrow pointing out the ‘Free Range Egg’.

Just in case you waondered WTF that was hanging out of the sanger.

Stupid. Metal floor studs look good but are slippery in rain

I was walking through Kensington the other day while it was raining when I ‘discovered’ these metal studs at the side of the road.

I know what they are supposed to be for, to warn those with limited sight that they are at the road edge.

Personally, I was never sold on that design to be honest, I would have thought the noise of traffic, the spatial senses etc would be far more effective than some bumps. I mean, if they are there to warn of the road, why don’t they line the pavement?

Surely this design only serves to warn if you happen to stray near the road at a crossing.

Anyway, I digress.

In Kensington High Street (or High Street Ken (why?!?)) they have opted for stainless steel street furniture, bars, bumps, bins all in stainless.

Looks nice I suppose. But it’s lethal in the wet. If a 20/20 vision 30-something can nearly upend themselves, surely said limited sight elderly person is going to come a cropper.

Pure form over function, style over substance, all sizzle no sausage.

It sets me to thinking about what else is broken like this…?

South West Trains Optimism

I was in the process of arranging my new train season ticket when I felt the need to ask customer services something.

Naturally I navigate to this form only to find that their default option for an enquiry is ‘Praise’.

Nice one.

Technorati Tags:
Train, Travel, User Experience, Customer Service, South West Trains, Interaction Design, Forms

Nice Things This Week 2

Yay! I remembered to share some more links with you this week. This could become a Friday habit (okay, technically it’s Thursday evening here) but I’m promising nothing. You hear me? Nothing!

Award winning Honda TV advert ripped off and applied to a website. I think I actually HATE this.

Playing football with binoculars on. Funny. Want to play.

Ever wondered how much space in our transport network is lost through choice of vehicle..? No..? Are you kidding me? Well check this image showing the amount of space required to transport the same amount of people by bus, bike or car.

Some haunting images from the day before. This is why I love photography and why I hate post production photo-engineering. I’ll argue with anyone that photography is about capture (though ‘capture’ may be interpreted).

This is what I hate about manipulated photography. It should be on the bedroom wall of a stoner student.

More photography, but this one feels personal, old and from a bygone era.

Need some new business cards, don’t be lame and print on card, try some of these. I wish we had, ours are rubbish. The divorce one is quite sweet and I like the one with a seed embedded within it.

I’m sure you’ve seen this transparent screen trick, I still like it. the effort people go to is amazing.

Move your mouse about and feel sick and disorientated. Wicked.

What’s your favourite keyboard shortcut? I wish I could ‘Apple-Z’ sometimes in life.

BBC Introduces ‘Ashes Mode’

The BBC has given up control of its promotion slot for the sake of cricket.It allows users the ability to have ‘Ashes Mode’ on or off so that coverage of the Ashes (which is real man’s baseball for all you US readers) can be displayed upfront and central.Here’s an overview and explanation and here’s the BBC homepage. Go play.I just love the Beeb.