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Comment by NeoTar | Hacker News Reader

I kinda hate the buttons here in Berlin - a lot of them look like this: https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2AEHF8N/traffic-light-switch-for-p...

I still will hit the yellow bit, but I'm not sure if I need to, or if they are totally automated*. There is absolutely zero feedback, not even the feedback of pushing a button.

British road-crossings often will illuminate a 'WAIT' message on the box when the button has been pressed, which is some great feedback.

(* there is a rotating part on the bottom which gives partially sighted people an indication that the lights are green).

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These are only there to help blind people cross the road. They have no influence at all on how fast the pedestrian light will turn green [1].

[1] https://www.absv.de/die-blindenampel

Whoa, I had no idea this was one of the main purposes of them. From the other comments, it seems that some need to be pushed to change the lights, however, I'm glad to know that some are just for accessibility. Now I'm also not sure which is which :-D

They do in my town. You have to smack it repeatedly until a white "warte" or "signal kommt" lights up on the signal at the other side of the road, or else it never will change.

They also don't vibrate or give any auditory signal (except when the actual green walk signal comes)... I'm not sure how a blind person could use it because their sensitivity is so low that you have to keep touching, pressing, smacking the touch surface until it registers you and updates the (purely visual) signal on the other side. I ended up just crossing illegally at one crosswalk because the damn thing just wouldn't work.

It's specifically the ones with three dots in a circle that are only there for the visually impaired. Some vibrate, some have a spinning thing on the bottom.

If they don't have the three dots in the circle they usually do control the lights. Newer models also show a red light on the side of the button when pressed, similar to the UK lights just more subtle. But there are also plenty of old buttons around that don't.

They are awful.

IIRC if it has three dots, it's for accessibility only - you don't need to press it.

If it has the vague hand symbol, it will probably light up when you "tap" it, but may not actually do anything you notice - one near us it doesn't speed up the light, it just makes it last longer. But for others it might also be necessary to tap it to make the light change!

>British road-crossings often will illuminate a 'WAIT'

Some in the US (maybe when I was in DC?) will audibly say "WAIT" from when they're pressed until you can cross, sometimes also counting the time remaining out loud after you get the signal, too.

This is, I believe, an accessibility feature.

I prefer the version of it I encountered in Hong Kong; there is a rapid clip of clicks at green, followed by a slower click when flashing red, and then a slow click at red. It's more universal and language-agnostic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnWRQ9yVFYg&t=13s

The sounds are highly directed so you can't hear, say, the crosswalk perpendicular to you, let alone hear it from surrounding buildings.

> This is, I believe, an accessibility feature.

Unless you are deaf, then you get no feedback. There are buttons near me that don't always trigger when I touch them, but I know to listen for the feedback. (these are touch, not push buttons) Of course they are not universal, there are a lot of buttons around me that give no feedback at all.

The notion that an accessibility feature means it is automatically accessible for 100% of people is asinine.

In any case the buttons often vibrate specifically so that deaf people can feel it.

But accessibility features need to cover all disabilities which often means you have to have more than one.

They don't need to cover all disabilities, that's ridiculous. Kinds, severities, and combinations of disabilities are endless. We make a reasonable effort that importantly must make sense for the application.

The person you've constructed in this scenario is both blind and deaf. Such an unattended person is in extreme danger on streets with automobile traffic no matter what the crosswalk button does.

No, the person I constructed is only deaf. They attempt to touch a button and do not realize that button did not register their attempt.

I agree that not all disabilities can be accounted for. However the more we account for the better - where accounting is all aspects of getting around. I don't know how to make it safe for a blind and deaf person to navigate streets safely - but I wish it was possible and as soon as I learn of something that works I'll support it.

A guide dog is literally trained for this.

At some point, a disability requires assistance. That is less true these days than in the past but still a last option.

If they're only deaf, then it's asked and answered because these new buttons have LED indicators and the sound they make can be felt through the housing. The ones near me might as well be knocking.

There is a simple solution for making these buttons accessible for all, and we have them in the UK.

It’s a simple button that clicks, and under the panel there’s a small knob that rotates. Click the button, then place your fingers on the knob and wait for it to start spinning. I can’t tell you if the crossing call button is completely broken (although you’ll figure that out if wait long enough), but broken call buttons in the UK are pretty rare, I’ve only encountered a small handful of broken buttons over 20 years.

I love the synced vibration/beep feature on crossing buttons, as I made a habit of laying my hand on top of the thing while waiting for the light to change. It gets my attention much faster than hearing/seeing the signals change, since I'm usually looking around during the time I'm waiting. Mostly at the lights for cars, since that hints at when it's my turn to go. (I can see and hear just fine, accessibility features like this are just bonus for me.)

I am most used to these ones specifically: https://c8.alamy.com/comp/ECW0FA/pedestrian-crossing-traffic...

Can be activated with your elbow, the thing beeps and the bottom lights up when you activate it.

It's like the swiss cheese security model. You don't have to and can't cater to every possible individual disability in the same happy path as long as you've provided options to allow people with the most common disabilities to use the $thing in some way. People that are simultaneously blind, deaf, wheelchair-bound, and mute are not actually that common and design guidelines aren't written assuming that every disabled person has every disability simultaneously.

This is the Internet. If something isn't a 100% bulletproof solution for literally every person, real or hypothetical, in every situation ever, it's worthless and the person who mentioned it is an idiot for even bringing it up.

I've encountered buttons with a haptic system in them. They are "still" when it is unsafe to cross and there's no call registered, pulse slowly when a call is registered, and buzz when it is safe to cross, regardless of a call being registered or not.

I'm not sure about Hong Kong, but the PB/5[0] has tactile feedback in addition to audio. You can put your hand on it and feel the clicks.

Slow clicks help deaf users locate the button; fast clicks mean it's safe to cross; silence means you shouldn't enter the crossing because there's not enough time left.

[0] See https://theconversation.com/sublime-design-the-pb-5-pedestri...: I have a possibly excessive national pride in how good a button it is

They’re almost perfect, but from what I’ve observed, there are two variants: one where the button sticks out, and another where the button is surrounded by a lip.

I absolutely detest the lip variant. It makes it impossible to slap the button with an open palm, requiring an actual push instead. Particularly with the pandemic, they were near impossible to activate with an elbow. So close to perfection and yet so far…

That said I now have to deal with the terrible British ones, and the attached signals that are supposedly safer - they’re on the same device as the button, supposedly forcing you to look at them and face the traffic. In practise, the inconsistency of whether there’s a crossing indicator on the other side of the road or not means I rely solely on sound cues.

If everyone can just adopt the PB/5, even with the atrocious lip, the world will be a better place.

This is also the case in many parts of the US. I've experienced this in WA and MN.

The crosswalks near me (San Diego) both speak English and make "whimpers" and clicks. They whimper while waiting or when it's time to clear the intersection, and then rapidly and loudly click when it's time to walk. At the same time and in English, they say "wait" repeatedly until the signal changes, then "crosswalk is on across such-and-such street".

Oh god - the fright I had in my first day in LA after I pressed the crosswalk button to cross a 6 lane road and it shouted WAIT at me. I will never forget that.

And if you keep pressing it, you can DJ while you wait:

WAIT…WAIT… WAI-WA-WAITWAITWAIT…

…CROSS SIGNAL IS ON…

BEEP… BEEP… BEEP… BEEP

Maybe you were referencing this and I'm just behind the times, but I read your comment and thought "surely someone has done this before..." And indeed, here's a remix of the "wait" sound (it's not the only one, either - apparently remixing crosswalk noises is a whole subgenre of house music): https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundclou...

In Australia, there's an LED present if hitting the button will do anything, which changes intensity when you press the button. In intersections where the LED doesn't do anything, it's either inactive, painted over, or replaced by a black plastic cap.

In other countries I find the lack of feedback quite frustrating.

That symbol means it's automated with no intervention from pedestrians.

The other one, with the hand symbol, means you only need to hover your hand near it and it registers your intent. No touch necessary.

For all the hate the bureaucracy and infrastructure in Berlin gets, the design of it at least does have some thought put into it.

If it's had a lot of thought put into it, so much the worse. Why such poor discoverability?

I figured it out watching locals. The hand symbol has a rather obvious intention so the 3 dots in a circle symbol obviously has a different one. Didn't take long to intuit from the fact that locals simply didn't interact with that box at all when it had the 3 dots in a circle and the lights still worked as intended.

Exactly the same experience in Berlin..

Only thanks to Covid and not wanting to touch things did I find out it did nothing

I don't know about this model, but similar ones in Paris have a physical push-button on the bottom side. Looking at the photo I think maybe there is one in this model too? I don't know the design decision behind this, I heard people saying that it is to avoid abuse which frankly sounds ridiculous.

In the end, it is a like a secret button only the locals know about :)

We have these hidden push-buttons in Norway as well. I believe they enable an audible cue when the pedestrian light turns green so that visually impaired know when to cross. AFAIK they don't actually affect the cycle of the intersection, it's just for accessibility.

Oh, this makes a lot of sense actually. I never use those anyway, but I will try and observe the next time I see one.

Same. Never understood whether they’re buttons or just sound generators for blind people.

The button is on the bottom - underneath

(took me a long time to figure that out)

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