← Home |  jakobloekkemadsen.com - Usability. Design. Code.

A good sign is unambigous. Its message is clear and its purpose immediately understandable in the context.

We’ve all seen bad signage with obscure wording or unclear use of symbols.
The kind that makes it necessary for you to stop and wonder what it means or why it’s even there.

But sometimes it’s not just lack of meaning or motivation that makes a sign bad.

Some signs convey angriness in their tone of wording thus bloating the message and risking to make recipients feel like they’re being told off. As if the sender of the message has another agenda that doesn’t really belong on a sign.
Often this can be because they’ve gotten anoyed with something that people keep doing in the particular location and finally resorted to put up a sign to make it stop!

It’s likely that this leaves us as recipients with a feeling of being treated unjustly, since we are probably not personally responsible for whatever irritation may lie behind the decision to put out such a message in a public space.

Also, as any child psychologist will agree, telling people off is not an efficient way to make them do what you want.
Sometimes it will even have the opposite effect. Especially when the badmouthing is unfair and you don’t get to defend yourself against the abuse.

Of course, as a usability professional, I regard this as really bad communication. Sometimes I would even call it “negative signage” because it attacks the issue backwards. Instead of guiding people in the right direction, helping them avoid the disapproved behaviour by their own means, this type of negative communication readily bashes anyone for their potential misdemeanor.
It’s the basic schism between the carrot and the stick, really.

My family and I encountered one such piece of negative communication while staying at the lovely island of Samsø last summer.
At the southern point of the island lies the pittoresque and windy Beacon of Vesborg.

As we walked from the parking lot up towards the beacon, we were greeted by the following sequence of signs:

“Bikes prohibited”, “Bringing food prohibited”

“the area is open in the time frame between 11.00 – 18.00″

“Bringing food and bicycles NO THANKS! Picnic & bicycles PROHIBITED”

“Cafe Fruen Ved Fyret (≈ Café the Misses By the Beacon) FOOD – ICE CREAM – CAKE – COFFEE”

“OPEN, SOFT ICE”

What a nice welcome!

First we’re given a couple of little rants that are not even relevant to us since we didn’t arrive by bike and thus did not put any bikes where it’s not allowed. Then we’re being forbidden to eat our packed lunch by the beacon.

At this point we were already beginning to think about leaving again soon, since we were already hungry and had actually planed to enjoy our packed lunch here that we had brought because we weren’t sure if they were selling anything to eat here.

Vesborg is quite far away from anything else on the island, and it would have been at least irresponsible to bring a 3-year old kid here without eatable backup.

It wasn’t until we were all the way up by the beacon side-house that we could see that they actually did sell food – or that is, on the sign it said “Café”. No menu in sight.

What was visible instead was a pile of colorful plastic junk that was also for sale there.

To us this ment: Distract the kid and keep walking! No time to stop and look for a menu sign.

The result: We hurried past the house, up the stairs to view the beacon and the scenery and then back to the parking lot to eat our packed lunch. Apparently just like most of the other visitors. The café was seemingly empty, and the parking lot was filled with families eating lunch by their cars.

What they should have done

Because of the way this area is laid out with a parking lot (entrance), a path up past the café (point of sale) and on to the beacon (the attraction) this struck me as very nice prototype of how any efficient sales generating lead is structured.

If the owners of the place had just chosen a different signage strategy, they would have probably sold tons of food and beverages – and maybe even some of the plastic toys and souvenirs they sported.

Regarding the bikes: In order for a restriction to have authority, it most make sense. There was plenty of room for bikes to stand here. Also, there was no real alternative. There was no area where it was visibly allowed to put bikes. So what else should people do, than put them where there’s room for it.

In this context, the only meaningful message coming from this sign was something like “I’m in charge, do what I say, because I say so” or maybe even “I hate cyclists”.

My guess is, that the only reason most bikers don’t just turn around and leave at once, is that they’re tired from the long ride to get there. Not a good start.

And, as I mentioned, this sign also has an impact on the mood of people not riding bikes. It’s the general first impression for all visitors.

Further on, the sheer number of signs give the impression that the owners don’t have much faith in their visitors’ ability to behave nicely on their own. Wording such as “The area is open between 11.00 and 18.00″ comes across as unnecessarily harsh or even slightly bureaucratic. If it really is the entire “area” that becomes restricted outside opening hours, maybe it would be better to just put up a small fence and a gate and let them do the work. No need to distract visitors within opening hours by telling them what they can’t do at another time.

What I suspect, though, is that this sign is just a clumsy attempt to let people know what the café opening hours are, in which case it would have been better just sticking to a conventional “Opening hours: 11.00 – 18.00″.

Ok, maybe this is not a major issue, but the devil’s in the detail, and all the impressions add up when a visitor tries to make sense of a new place.

Finally, if by prohibiting people to eat their own lunch, they hope to boost sales in the café, they obviously failed.

Instead, the owners should asses the behaviour of their visitors and build on what looked like a very healthy customer potential.

If they had put up a clear menu sign instead of the restriction sign – you know with a nice layout and readable prices – and put together a selection of sandwiches, soft drinks and coffee to make people want to throw away their own boring packed lunch, then we at least would have settled down and enjoyed a beautiful, windy summer afternoon by the beacon. Just like the casual and rustic tables and benches where ment to invite to.

So, owners of Vesborg, if you read this: Lighten up! Don’t yell in advance at your potential customers. Use your energy to spread the message to all island visitors: “Come and enjoy the beautiful and historic Beacon of Vesborg. The view is fantastic in almost all weather. And don’t worry! You can buy lunch here.”