Sarah Neergaard
July 3, 2014
Lab Report 1
1
I have just returned from a family vacation in Quebec City, Canada and what struck me
the most on the drive north were the unusual traffic lights in Quebec province. Unfortunately
since I was driving I was unable to snap my own picture, but this photo illustrates them well
enough. Instead of the standard red yellow green circle setup, lights in Quebec province are both
color and shape coded, with double red lights on the ends of the light. A red light is square, the
yellow is a diamond, and in lieu of a green circle, a green arrow displays the direction traffic is
supposed to flow. My sister and I remarked that this was an interesting idea, using shapes as well
as colors to dictate traffic flow, but I had not given it much further thought as to why the
Canadian government would choose this method until now.
Upon further research into these lights, I learned that they are shaped to assist the
colorblind and are based upon a Korean design team’s attempt to create a universal traffic signal
to alleviate all issues associated with color-blindness and driving. “Globally, over 200 million
people are believed” to suffer from some sort of red-green colorblindness, making driving
sometimes hazardous in unfamiliar areas.2 Most countries keep traffic lights in the same color
order, but color-blind drivers still face difficulty when certain colors flash, or if lights are turned
to the side. In response to this, Yanko Design has created Uni-Signal (an acronym for Universal
Signal Light) which proposes a yellow triangle, red circle and green square to be used
universally so that color blind drivers “will be able to understand the significance of the light at
any given moment”.3 The Canadian lights divert a bit from this design as they have instead
assigned the squares to the red lights, but the idea is basically the same. I had always assumed
that the current setup of traffic lights had the colorblindness issue solved. Red was always on top
or left, green always on bottom or right. Apparently I was mistaken as there are innumerable
1
Canadian Traffic Light. http://i.imgur.com/i7jCi.jpg. Accessed 3 July 2014.
Jason Mick and Tracie McDaniel. “Redeigned Traffic Light could assist the colorblind.”
http://www.dailytech.com/Redesigned+Traffic+Light+Could+Assist+the+Color+Blind/article18775.htm
3
“Uni-Signal. Traffic Lights for Color Blind People” http://www.autoevolution.com/news/uni-signal-traffic-lightsfor-color-blind-people-21556.html.
2
threads on social media sites such as tumblr and reddit from colorblind people complaining that
they are often confused when traveling outside their hometowns, and especially abroad.
I had always thought of traffic signals to be obvious to anyone who has spent any time
driving or walking around in any traffic area. Then again, there is always that one intersection in
that one town that even locals have no idea how to traverse. A quick Google search reveals the
following confusing traffic signs:
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If I was a red-green colorblind individual and came upon any one of these, I would probably give
up and just go home. Of course these are extremes, but nonetheless illustrate the need for a
universal, shape and color based signal. I do believe these color/shape based signals are an
affordance to drivers and pedestrians alike. Colors and positioning are identical to those in the
USA, and shapes add the extra element for color-blind drivers. We were not confused by the
lights, but merely intrigued by the shape element.
Norman discusses how humans only have partial memories of everyday objects. Citing
the coin example from his book, “users of coins formed representations in ther memory systems
that were sufficiently precise only to distinguish only among the coins that they actually had to
use”.7 When introducing new coins, people became confused between which currency meant
what. The same can be said for traffic lights. Once new colors or shapes or orientations of traffic
lights are introduced, the driver or pedestrian will become confused and may not know how to
proceed. If the Uni-Signal was used, travelers would only need to remember three shape and
color combinations, no matter where they traveled and thus would avoid confusion, and certainly
many accidents. The trick now is to get the entire world on board with transferring over to this
new system, a truly daunting task!
4
http://fareastfling.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/traffic-lights.jpg Accessed 3 July 2014.
http://melbourne.metblogs.com/archives/swanstonstreettrafficlight.jpg Accessed 3 July 2014.
6
http://www.bestviral.com/i/images/223.jpg Accessed 3 July 2014.
7
Donald Norman. The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books, 1988: 59.
5
In keeping with the travel theme, I wanted to include an object which required a great
deal of reading and examination to figure out the use of. Where better to find objects like these
than SkyMall? This magazine has long been my favorite part of air travel as I delight in paging
through the endless assortment of unique, useless and usually hilarious objects for sale. Here we
have the Reflexology Hand Massager:
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According to SkyMall, if you stick your hand in here you can relieve pain from extended
keyboard and mouse use. All of this for the low price of $129.95! Frankly, at first glimpse I have
no idea what this machine is going to do to my hand, or what any of those buttons do. If the
image did not include a picture of someone’s hand in the actual product, I would have absolutely
no idea what to use it for. Examining the buttons in this image shows no logical explanation of
what any one of them does, assuming you have figured out that this device is for your hands. The
only logic on the device is the red button, which I assume is the on/off switch.
This mirrors Norman’s discussion with the problem with switches. “Consider my car radio:
twenty-five controls, many apparently arbitrary”.9 Who knows what any of these buttons do?
Obviously the designer assumes the customer will read some sort of instruction manual, and then
know what to do with the device. They haven’t taken into account that since most people think
this a) looks silly and b) have no idea what it’s actually for, their target audience probably won’t
get that far.
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9
http://www.skymall.com/hand-reflexology-massager/81569.html#q=massager&start=4 Accessed 3 July 2014.
Donald Norman. The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books, 1988: 94.