Redesign signage

How to redesign something you are familiar with?

In this week, we were required to choose an unsuccessful signage and re-design it. I walked around the Tisch building and found out that this parking signage is not clear enough to convey the important information. But before I went any further, I interviewed 10 people and tried to get insight from them.

I have three types of target audiences:

• NYC residents/Non NYC residents who drive or have driven in the city.
• Non-NYC residents who used to drive often in their states.
• Non USA citizens who used to drive often in their home country.

Here are the questions list:

• Which information strikes you in the first glance? What are the next?
• Do you think you have enough time to read the text while you are driving?
• What is the most important information you would like to know while you are looking for parking? What will be the next?
• Does the color and arrows make sense to you?
• What parts of the signage confuse you?
• Do you have similar signage in your hometown/home country? What does it looks like? Can you draw it?
• Any advise to make the signage clear?

Summary of the interview:

• Red capital letters “COMMERCIAL VEHICLES ONLY” strikes people first because red means warning, importance, attention.
• Most of them will keep reading the red texts thought it is not relevant to them.
• After the red capital letters, most of them will look at the number and arrows.
• Sequences of the information that drivers are looking for: 1) Am I allowed to park here? 2) Do I need to pay? 3)When and what time am I allowed to park? 4) Where should I park? 5) How to pay?
• The numbers and arrows could be confusing.

Problems of signage that have been found out from interview:

• Drivers of other vehicles keep reading irrelevant red texts which would waste their time to find out the important information they are looking for.
• Most of people who haven’t driven in NYC before are not familiar with the number on the signage, which would confuse them whether they need to pay or not.
• The direction of arrows could confuse drivers who are not familiar with NYC.

Here comes my solution:

• To save drivers time and help them find the information they want, I made two versions of the signage. 1) Add green capital letters on the right part of the signage so they can read the relevant information immediately after passing the red capital letters. 2) Instead of using texts, I applied icon to make it more clear.
• I added “hr” after the number “3” and “2” to let drivers clear that number means time.
• I added the icon of currency “$” to clarify that the parking lots need to be paid.
• I put the arrow on the top of the signage to avoid overlap.
• I made a grid for the day and time to make it looks more consistent.

I haven’t applied usability test so the eligibility of these signages haven’t been approved. Besides, some users from other countries told me that parking lots on the street will be color painted so driver will notice that they are allowed to park here. Thus, the signage might need other assertive ways to convey the information clearly and smoothly.