Press Me: The buttons that lie to you
bbc.com
bbc.com
Yes, there are some social/mental benefits to lying to people. It's a very nuanced and complex topic, however, and I seriously doubt the people who make these things are thinking through all the ramifications. Instead I think they're just making stuff that causes the least amount of complaining.
But think about the endgame here. Do we really want semi-intelligent computers shading information in such a way to make us happier? Facebook already is doing its damnedest to keep all of us from insulting each other accidentally, thereby losing online "friendships". It's in Facebook's best interest that more people use the site and enjoy it. But it's in _my_ best interest to meet and socialize with people who may have widely divergent viewpoints -- even if it means stepping on some toes now and then.
Ever wonder why the world is more and more becoming an echo chamber for little niches of belief systems? Want more of that?
Society's interest to self-correct, to have difficult conversations. It's in manufacturer's interests to create things that make people happy. These interests are not aligned. More troublesome, the more we get what we want, the worse our self-correcting feedback loops breakdown. Not a good thing.
This means that free speech is not optimized for the individual; it's optimized for the evolution of the society as a whole. Technology, on the other hand, is optimized for the individual.
Fast forward to now, when the city is trying to become less car-centric, and new buttons are being put up that actually work (when you press them, the pedestrian lane becomes the next in line for the green light, and if you don't press it then it only very rarely or never gets green).
The result is people become agitated at the how slow the pedestrian lights go, because of course noone presses the button when they've been trained not to.
These kinds of design patterns will come back to bite you. Make things transparent and don't try to manipulate people like this.
Btw. do you really have traffic light buttons that don't do anything? Here in Berlin many automatic traffic lights have something that looks like a button but actually isn't one. Underneath is vibrating button that will show blind people that it's green without a sound. Many many people don't see that this is not a button, and don't think a moment about the blind sign (yellow ground, three black dots) on top of it and press it anyway, hoping it has an effect.
Yes, the old ones really did nothing. I just can't understand why they were put there. I tried pressing (and holding) them a few times, they had no vibration or anything like that. They've started removing them as the new, functional ones are installed, but it's hard to change people's habits.
The new ones both affect the traffic light timing and emit an audible signal for the blind.
Wtf? This kind of programmed helplessness deserves some studying too. I generally wait ~60 seconds or one light cycle, after which I ignore the broken light and proceed on my own. Traffic lights are there to mediate between people, not exert iron-clad control over them.
Your unsupported dismissal aside, clearly this is not a "vanishingly small" group. I mention this because the majority of pedestrians do not seem use the buttons. Those that do use them are mostly tourists.
I have no idea where you are going with your talk about signage. I don't expect a printed-out flowchart or ladder diagram at every intersection. But not putting up nonfunctional switches seems a small thing to ask, especially given the problems that result, as described in my post.
That being said, I hate the new trend of 'touch' buttons. I really like a tactile feedback, telling me that the mechanism registered my interaction. It feels more solid and reliable.
For example I've been on an underground train where this happened at Hendon station on the Northern Line.
I would be very surprised if you could confirm that you have been on an elevator where these buttons weren't wired up.
If I don't press the open door button on the train then the door doesn't open; if I press the button, then the door opens. One of my train start locations is at the end of the line. The train idles there for 10-15 minutes and because of supposed placebo buttons I've actually used this time to experiment and see if the doors will trigger based on anything other than the button and they do not.
In the same vain, I'm sure there are city intersections that always trigger regardless of pressing the button, but when I've had the time, I've waited patiently through up to three full rotations of intersection lights without getting a pedestrian crossing in either direction. But, lo-and-behold, when I finally press the button, I'll get the pedestrian light in my direction and the the other one still doesn't trigger.
Though there's a weird awkward social thing, because you know the people behind you are staring at you thinking "take your finger off and push it again and the doors will open, idiot!"
I go through pedestrian crossings regularly when you absolutely need to push the button or they never trigger. You can tell if someone hasn't been through for a while because the crossing changes straight away.
It may sound selfish, but I'm of the opinion that it should be set at the lowest level that people are comfortable with and then those who are too cold and put layers on.
Death to open plan offices, I say.
But there was no such easy fix one summer when the techies with a south window were cooking and the boss with a north window was just right. The boss resisted all efforts at a compromise.
Of course they outlawed space heaters, but that didn't stop anybody from bringing them in. The funny part was trying to coordinate them so we could warm a certain set of cubes without blowing the fuse.
It was our way of getting some feeling of control back. It's interesting how important this is to people - to feel like they're in control of their surroundings.
Most UK crossings beep when it's safe to cross (for the blind), and have small jagged cones[1] on the bottom that can be felt spinning around in your hand (for the deaf and blind).
[1] http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/media/images/67872000/jpg/_...
The London Overground functions exactly like this.
In addition in a previous life of actually programming pedestrian crossing systems, the button does in fact have an effect (or did). It sets a flag on the system which is checked after a predetermined set of time to see if the lights should stop traffic. Its all highly dependent on the road system, however.
This is the same where I live. The crossing buttons do nothing during the day (walk symbols still come on for the same length of time), but at night they need to be used. I don't push it during the day, but of course most people still do :-)
I always push the button at pedestrian crossings, even though I'm aware it often does nothing.
Is that because it "creates a sense of togetherness with strangers which might otherwise be absent"? Is it because "doing something is better than doing nothing"? Is it because my "attention is on the activity at hand"?
No, it's because at some crossings, at some times, it has an effect; and life's too short to construct a mental record of the reverse-engineered temporal programming of traffic lights.
I also believe that the hardware is there so that the software can be changed.
I've seen plenty of people follow your strategy incorrectly, perhaps following an operational change that they haven't noticed. They are really just waiting for someone else to come and push the button.
I walk to and from work every day, same route, same crossings, during daylight hours, the same sequence of traffic and crossing, to the degree where one watches the traffic lights and crosses as you see them change, rather than waiting for the pedestrian light.
Anyway, long story short, walked there one evening shortly after getting into this routine, and got halfway across the road before realising that the flow was evidently different at night, and required a button-push for the pedestrian interval.
If they just put up a sign that said "button needs pushing only between hours of X and Y" it'd probably help road safety and save frustration - although that goes contrary to the article. shrug
At work there is a crossing at some traffic lights that doesn't have a button. This means you have to crane your head awkwardly to try and watch the traffic lights for when they're red and it's safe to cross. It's even worse for the visually impaired, as there is no noise or cone. [1]
I would be very surprised if these buttons were originally devised as placebos, then eventually connected up when someone decided that when someone uses a button that purports to indicate their desire to cross, it might be desirable for it to have an effect on the signals on that crossing.
Cell phones have been doing this since the first GSM phones. Look up "comfort noise". It saves bandwidth by not actually transmitting low level background noise.
It'd be nice if this could be disabled, in favor of a clearer call.
I think knowing which buttons are placebo, and which work does give you a happy sense of smugness similar to knowing exactly the door to get in and off the train when you need it.