Archive: Opinions

The Lansing schools should offer drivers a speed reading course.  Because the messages on their electronic roadside sign are too much tiny text to read in too little time.  Multi-line messages blink on and off the screen in text that is too small to see from your car as you drive by.  If you are interested enough to want to know what they say, you are probably not watching the road or your speedometer.

Electronic signs are cool.  I remember seeing my first electronic billboard while on a road trip.  I glanced at the sign, then looked down at the road.  When I looked at the sign again it was completely different.  I was impressed.

Now that such signs are becoming ubiquitous, we are facing the same problem that graphic artists complained about when desktop publishing programs were first introduced for personal computers.  They complained that anyone could use the tool, but only trained graphic artists could use it in a way that would make attractive, legible page layouts.  We're finding the same problem with free website building sites -- sure you can make a site for yourself, but does it really look good or different from the hundreds of other free sites?

In the case of electronic signs the trick is to come up with a brief message, display it in a font size that is immediately and easily readable, and to display it for as long as it takes for someone driving by at whatever the speedlimit is to read it.

The Lansing Market sign does that.  It doesn't say much in any one screen, but you can read what it does say.  It gets the message across.  Safely.

The school sign does the opposite.  Almost every screen has too much text in different colors that are flashed for what seems like an instant.  Unless you stop at the base of the sign it is nearly impossible to understand what it is saying.  If you are paying enough attention to read what that sign says, you probably are not paying enough attention to the road.  Eventually that is going to mean a collision, or, worse, an injured student.

Maybe the sign isn't big enough, but, again, the Lansing Market sign is smaller.  Yet they seem to have a handle on making it legible.  The problem seems to be the natural urge to put too much information out there.  Why use a sound bite when you can write a novel?

When I studied design one of the most important concepts we learned was 'less is more'.  It means that if you have less, then what you do have takes on more significance.  If you have a chair on an empty stage it is way more important visually and dramatically than a chair on a stage full of furniture and scenery.  The concept works the same way with writing.

When I worked for a large Internet corporation part of my duties was to write three short lines of text that would go with a little picture to get people to click on a link that would take them to one of my team's features.  Each line fit five words at most, and the top line had to be a headline.  If I couldn't get my point across in those few words nobody would click on the link and my features would not be seen by members.

It was like writing haiku.  It was tough, and it took a lot of editing.  A LOT more editing than you would think fifteen words or less should need.  But it was worth it.  One day one of my features got a million hits.

If nobody can read the message it doesn't matter that our students went to state championships, that the play is this weekend, that a school board meeting is Monday night, or that a well known author is visiting the high school, because nobody will know.  And if they do know they do so at the risk of crashing their car.

{fcomment}v10i18