Plagued By Bad Design, Still

Design, from websites to cities to forks, is so important, all around us, and so easy to get right--but also easy to get wrong in some cases. Here's one that was easy to get right, but the designers and people who approved it still got it wrong (don't they even test these things?).

The NYC MTA information/help audio posts found in many subway stations have two words, and two buttons, as you can almost see in the first photo. Except that the second button is really hard to see (although this photo unintentionally made it worse than usual, but it's still pretty bad).

Actual info post thing.

There are two overall problems, which you can see a little in the below photo.

1. The physical placement of the words in relation to the buttons. 
2. The color of the buttons. 

At first glance it looks like there is one Emergency Information button. But there is a second, dark, button there. But the word Information is closest, out of both words, to the red button, and the red button is closest to the word Information. So the red button and the word Information must have some relationship.

They don't.

Notice the yellow lines are longer than the blue line.

Clearly, the Information button should be easier to see, and the two words and their actual buttons should be visually obviously related, that is, by distance (although you could also do color). One solution would look like this:

Much better!

I don't even have a degree in design. This isn't rocket science.

NYC School of Data

Spent most of the day yesterday at the NYC School of Data conference -- accurately billed as "NYC's civic technology & open data conference." Sponsored by a wide variety of organizations, such as Microsoft, Data & Society, the day involved a lot of great organizations such as various NYC government data departments, included great NYC people such as Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and New York City council member Ben Kallos, and was held at my workplace, the awesome Civic Hall.

Ignite Talks at Civic Hall: Great Stuff!

Omidyar Network hosted a great bunch of ignite talks (the crazy auto-slide-advancing ones) at Civic Hall on April 13th, including a few people I know which was exciting!

The Speakers:

• Laurenellen McCann Mo Open Data
• Tony Schloss Red Hook WIFI- The Realest Community Tech
• Miriam Altman The uphill battle to graduation day
• Chris Whong In Search of Hess' Triangle
• Rose Broome What is the Basic Income?
• Lane Becker Good Enough for Government Work?
• David Riordan The NYC Space/Time Directory: How The New York Public Library is unlocking NYC's past
• Gavin Weale SA Elections 2014: a youth odyssey
• Paul Lenz The Resilience of the Past
• Kathryn Peters Disrupting government
• Joel Mahoney Civic Technology and the Calculus of the Common Good
• Kate Krontiris Understanding America's Interested Bystander
• Nick Doiron The Civic Deep Web
• Jessie Braden Open Data Perils: Question Everything
• Daniel X. O'Neil Changing Civic Tech Culture from Projects to Products
• Daniel Latorre What I Learned About CivicTech from Eastern Europe
• Noel Hidalgo Clear eyes. Full heart. Can't Loose! NYC's civic tech in 2022.

Great topics, some great ideas, and some great slides.

NYU CUSP Meetup

Went to a cool informative meetup at NYU's Center For Urban Science And Progress (CUSP) where Mike Flowers did a Q&A about the NYC government data field. Flowers has a very interesting and diverse background which, importantly, includes a lot of hands-on getting things done (and by "things" I do not meet writing academic papers like I mostly do). Currently he is CUSP’s first Urban Science Fellow, although I am not sure exactly what that means. (Perhaps it's, "person who can teach smart things but doesn't have a PhD since he's a practitioner.")

One of his comments that I found very accurate and liked very much was his focus on what the data means -- that is, the numbers do not speak for themselves, you have to know what they actually represent. You go out into the field with the people that generate those numbers and have a hands-on understanding of them. What are they quantifying? What do the measures mean? How are they measured?

One great quote, which I will paraphrase since I don't have it exactly, was that, in order to understand NYC data, you have to have an understanding of the history of the city.

Flowers is a person who understands how to understand data! History! Awesome.

William Whyte and Benches

One thing I recall from William Whyte's fantastic The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces is one idea about people: people like other people (so we like people watching), but some people (typically who own, maintain, or work next to a small urban space) don't want "undesirables" in that space while "undesirables" don't want other people around and so you want things like benches.

Here in NYC, we have some recent citywide benches. People can sit, relax for a moment, and watch other people. Passersby might feel a little better with some other people sitting there. But, what's interesting about these benches is the little raised seat dividers -- people can't sleep on these benches, probably addressing the "undesirables" issue that Whyte wrote about, while the rest of the bench lets people sit there, as we like to do.

User Evolved Practice

I don't actually know what the official phrase is (the term of art), but I bet there is one -- a practice in a system that the users create on their own, independently from the creators or maintainers of that system. Several weeks ago, someone had mentioned to me that users of the bike share program (which is found internationally and across the US, here's the NYC site) would, upon returning a bike that had a problem, reverse the seat. This acted as a sign to other users. This was not official, and somehow had to spread in terms of knowing what it meant (perhaps via forums). So I don't know all the details, but I finally saw one at the rack outside my office! (And no, this is not a staged photo -- I could have done that but where's the fun in that?)

Digital Cities

May was very busy, what with ICA in Phoenix (and the Comic Con! -- we saw a ton of the ST:TNG cast, the guy from Eureka, Ed Asner, Lou Ferrigno, and spoke to Gil Gerard about media effects I kid you not, and saw other stuff), and next it's off to Dublin for ICWSM. I was poking around for some amusing digital cities images for my presentation, and since I live in Brooklyn thought I'd use GTA:IV as an example of a fictional digital city, and I found this image with the sign from my local drugstore! I inquired about the sign, the pharmacist said there used to be more of them back in the day, so it's possible the in-game one is based on another one somewhere in the city.

Look at that sign!

Look at that sign!

Gil Gerard and Cliff Lampe at Phoenix Comic Con, 2012, taken by me.

Three Interface Notes

Those of you familiar with the NYC subway (the MTA) will recall the hideous, screeching beep that sounds when a train is approaching. This awful sound is not down on the platform, where one can see the train approach, but is up in the turnstile area. It's quite loud, so you can usually hear it as you are coming down the initial set of stairs to enter the station. However, the MTA is quite adamant about you not running. Don't run! There are posted placards to this effect. Of course if they don't want us to run, why do they have a sound that tells us, you'd better start running if you want to catch the next train? You can hear the sound right at the point where you need to run to catch the train. Amazing.

My TW cable box and remote have a bit of an issue. Ok ok, I have the issue. Let us say you want to change the channel, and you want the number to increase, or go up as it were. You push the + button, which is part of the +/- button, and the + is on the top half of the +/- button (so, on the upper part of it). You then go "up" in terms of channel. However (you saw this coming), if you are in the guide, up is not up anymore. Up is suddenly down. The problem is that in the guide the higher-numbered channels are listed below the lower-numbered channels. So, you don't click the up arrow button to increase the channel numbers in the guide (you don't use the +/- button here), you click the down arrow button to increase the channel numbers. Sometimes up is increase channel number, other times it is decrease channel number. Granted + is not totally equivalent to up in mathematical terms, but using a cable remote is not math, it is usability. +, up, and increase are all functionally equivalent and they should act similarly. They don't need to be exactly the same, but here they are complete opposites.

And lastly, online shopping. The GUI worked pretty well with the desktop paradigm (files, folders, trash). But the web doesn't have a paradigm like that, even though it is visual. For online shopping, why don't they have us drag the image of what we want to the shopping cart? Seems obvious. Maybe someone has done it already, or maybe it's patented by a patent troll. I don't know if that would make online shopping easier, but it seems more natural.

Gizmodo Objects Gallery Opening

Currently at Reed Space there is an exhibit of very cool tech objects, courtesy of Gizmodo. Well worth a look if you are in NYC, even though it is a bit out of the way when it comes to the subway.

(Gizmodo event wrap-up.)

Oldest first. Portable typewriter, although based on its looks it could be a modern steampunk interpretation.


A very cool old AT&T protoype videophone. I have a copy of an advertisement with this in it, a man is using it to sell hats, and he's wearing a Mickey Mouse hat, so it looks like he is adjusting antennae on his head.


Apple prototypes -- similar style to the Apple IIc.




Homebrew portable Atari 2600!


TAM! I had never actually seen one before (just pictures), they are fairly rare.


Chumby! My iPhone does most of the same things, though, but I like the idea.


Laser etching! That little light in the photo? Laser! Awesome.

Ghost Ships of Staten Island

So, I was dragging around Google maps to observe the entire outline of Staten Island, looking for a sister ship to the Nobska, the New Bedford, which was "was moved to a Staten Island junkyard in 1968, where her remains continue to rust away today."

If you are familiar with Staten Island or the waterway between it and New Jersey, this may not surprise you, but there are several possible contenders for where the New Bedford might be.

• Northside or just east of there.
  
• This sad collection on the northwest. Rossville. (Related images, wow, nice use of info tech.) Maybe. Hard to tell. Nice overhead movable shot. More links.
  
• These mostly sunken ships on the west side. (Zoom in!)
  

Grand Army Farmers' Market

Hit up the farmer's market this morning. The smell of fresh produce is awesome! Hits the right spot in the brain (yes, evolution!).

Flowers:	More flowers:
Blueberries:	Eggplants:
Nectarines:	Currants:
Rhubarb:	Orchids:
Mushrooms:	Produce:

Subway Story, Illustrated

Nice little illustrated subway story, by an artist about his kids and the NYC subway, over at his NYTimes blogspace. Again I insist the blogs are the best thing there (not denigrating the rest of it, note).

Brooklyn Botanical Garden

Wow. C/o BB. The movement of the shadows is incredible, like flowing water. (The BBG is only about a 10 minute walk from where I live.)

2008 Cherry Blossom Timelapse at Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

NYAFF 2008

"One of the city's most valuable events." - The New York Times

NYPL Door

Here is a iPhoto of a detail from one of the main doors at the New York Public Library (no, I didn't take a photo of the lions). (NYPL@Wikipedia)

GTA IV In The 'Hood

I do not recall any GTA IV adverts in Montreal, but saw two within an hour of returning stateside, this one on 7th.

Cool Parsons Sign

Parsons School of Design

The Yankees

If you missed it, a Boston Red Sox fan, who lives in the Bronx and is a construction worker, buried a Red Sox jersey in the cement of the new Yankees stadium. The Yankees ownership found out about it, much brouhaha ensued, and they dug it out to the tune of $50,000 (and about five hours of drilling).

Seriously.

Apparently, some people take these things seriously. Yankees President Randy Levine is one of them, who said the worker "was trying to do a really bad thing" and that it was "a very, very bad act." A shirt? I had no idea a shirt could be so powerful! Billions of people wear them every day! This is incredible! And people wear them to baseball games! Scary!

According to the worker, the shirt did not cause any structural problems (it was in a floor), yet the Yankees front office were discussing possible criminal charges. I do not believe our legal system recognizes jinxes, since they don't exist except in people's heads (and no, that does not make them real).

Also amusing is the copywrong notice on the AP story ("This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed."), which is wrong, and of course I could comment on how the New York Post is taking this seriously, but if that surprises you then you don't know the Post (so I hope it surprises you).

Photos

Some cool (imho) recent photos.

NYC Metro:

Die Flugdrache! (Literally, flying dragon, as you can see.) From the hotel in FL.

Text of die Flugdrache (and other cool German words).

Murakami at the Brooklyn Museum

Brooklyn Museum Murakami page.