Raster Media's Soapbox

I stumbled upon this article the other day about “What Interactive Designers Can Learn from Traffic Signs” and at first, I got to say I was pretty hesitant about what I could actually learn from a stop sign when it comes to design. Traffic signs come in elementary shapes and have the least bit of creativity in them but they are effective.

As we come to believe  people drive more carefully when a road feels more dangerous. They automatically respond to the natural visual cues in their surroundings and adjust their behavior accordingly. They ask themselves, is this they type of road I can drive fast on, or is this the type of road where I have to drive carefully?

This is the reason narrow streets with trees crowded along the edges are often safer than wide streets with large clearing zones on each side. Common sense would say, less trees means fewer potential things to collide with. But, the reality is: the scary trees lining the side of the road act as a crash deterrent. The trees are far more effective than a “35 mph Speed Limit” sign. Traffic signs are nothing but artificial cues that try to compensate for a road environment that doesn’t effectively tell people how to behave.

Now that you have had time to get a refresher on traffic signs, how does this all translate to a Interactive Designer? Great question, it is human behavior we often ignore artifical cues telling us to “Click Here”, just isn’t a enticing offer to click on. But what if you made it more engaging and part of the environment as do traffic signs do with roads. A well integrated call-to-action or “cta” for short, an engaging motion graphic, or a startling design element can provide natural clues to what a user should do next. They’re built it into the environment, not patched on top of it, and that’s the way they should be.

Users ignore most banner ads because they feel like banner ads. They’re ugly, distracting and feel artificial. They’re unrelated to the website experience at hand. The mind blocks them out and instead responds to other items on the page. If interactive designers really want to get people’s attention, they need to create natural cues, not artificial ones.