Good design wards off ambiguity
Route signs, spontaneously and clumsily captured with my phone, while narrowly avoiding crashing
I recently went on a multi-day bike tour across a good chunk of Switzerland.
I planned my route with the somewhat-usable-but-very-useful Switzerland Mobility website, which has routing information about Switzerland’s extensive network of bike paths (and hiking, paddling, skiing, etc.).
The path I took ended up following a patchwork of different routes - I’d be on one route for a bit, then switch over to another one, and then pick up the first again (or a different one) 20 or 30km down the road. I needed to check the route on my phone often to figure out if I should stay on my current route (say, Route 5) or I needed to switch over to a different one (say, Route 44).
But, while I was following a specific route, I noticed something kind of amazing. Though the route wove through villages, and across cornfields and around farms, it was so incredibly well-signed that I rarely needed to look at my phone.
Approaching an intersection, I’d get a bit nervous: do I go straight? Should I take an exit in the roundabout? What about that other road that’s spiking off to the left up there - is that where I’m supposed to go? But as I passed through each successive intersection, my trust in the signage grew. It was like my mind was being read. From far away, as my discomfort grew, I would spot a little brown-ish reddish signs, and breathe a sigh of relief. As I got closer, I could make out what the sign was telling me - whether I needed to go straight, to turn, or to zig-zag. Some of these ‘decision’ points had as many as three signs (!!) - one to point you in the right overall direction, another to help you navigate a tricky interchange, and after you’d done that, a last one to confirm that you were on the right path. Whew!
I got so used to being spoiled by signage that as soon as I approached an intersection that gave no guidance on where to go, I grew suspicious that I’d veered off course. When I checked my phone to confirm, most of the time I indeed was off-course. (You could argue that if the signs were so good, I wouldn’t have gone off course! Fair point. But I was often distracted by fumbling for my water bottle or extracting a malted gummy bear from my jersey pocket. Don’t judge.)
While good design for road signage is another topic altogether - and one I’m not very familiar with - I couldn’t shake that the feeling this system of signs gave me was something that all design should aspire to provide - a feeling of comfort, a warding off of ambiguity, a warm fuzzy sense of of “we got you; you got this.”
This excellent quote from Charles Eames came to mind:
“The role of the designer is that of a very good, thoughtful host, anticipating the needs of his guests.”
That really felt like what was going on. Someone put themselves in the clip-on shoes of a cyclist and asked … “What might someone think as they approach this intersection? Will they think that the dirt path off to the left is the continuation of the route? Let’s illustrate that on the sign, just to be sure.”
As with road signs, so with UI designs.
Put yourselves in the shoes of your users and try to get into their heads.* Anticipate their possible concerns and the ambiguities that might arise. Make them feel well-looked after, like you thought about what might go wrong, and took pains to address it.
Concerned they might get antsy about when to enter in that voucher code during check-out? Give ‘em a heads-up it’s coming on the next screen, right after they enter payment information. Think they’ll have a hard time knowing where to find that article after they’ve bookmarked it? Tell them (or show them) where it ended up. Worried that they’ll be hesitant to exit out of a long flow, for fear that their progress won’t be saved? Re-assure them that their progress is saved. (You are saving their progress, aren’t you? No? Then tell them that too!)
If these considerations seem like just basic tenets of good design … well, then … heck yeah, that’s the whole point! So much of what constitutes good design can be boiled down to this seemingly simple, yet deceptively difficult act of trying to anticipate where someone might furrow their brow or audibly curse, and then flexing your power as a designer to ward off the ambiguity, before things go off course.
* Mandatory user-centered design disclaimer: It’s good to anticipate, but don’t forget to validate. Usability test it 💯
