Tag: urban planning

December 8, 2004

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  Roads Gone Wild

  Okay, Wired’s Roads Gone Wild article is now available online.

  I quite enjoyed this article although the thought of curbless, signless intersections with fountains in the middle is a bit disturbing.

  I loved this quote, which I think also represents wise words for web teams: “‘The trouble with traffic engineers is that when there’s a problem with a road, they always try to add something,’ Monderman says. ‘To my mind, it’s much better to remove things.’”

  However, I wouldn’t try to overanalyze this article from a web user experience perspective as the basic concept of the article (that you should make people stop and think so they don’t mindlessly kill themselves) doesn’t apply to the web. Online you want to remove stuff from your site so there is less thinking thinking to do, not more. Since no one gets hurt if a user is going racing through your site, design to help avoid thinking as much as possible.