I think that the notion that this placebo effect has a great impact on our lives is a very interesting one. We constantly are reinforced with signage to make ourselves seem more comfortable with our surrounding or the situations at hand. The elevator button comments I find to be especially entertaining. I myself have rushed into an elevator and pressed my floor button immediately followed by the door close button, and nine out of ten times pushing this button seems to have little to no effect. Now these buttons may be wore out, but some of these elevators I have been in are fairly new. Certainly these buttons should work in some kind of timely manner. Interesting, and humorous commentary by Michael Bierut in my opinion.
The second point I would like to comment on is the effectiveness of the national security color-coding system. I think that he makes a valid comment here. What are we supposed to do when there is a heightened level of threat? Are we supposed to run and cower? Are we supposed to not fly or not go to work and forget our daily duties? I think not! I know there some level of use for this system but really all this is doing is making paranoid people, more paranoid. Information design is a very important and very functional thing in our society. The question is however; when are we creating to much noise in our daily lives? Is it really necessary? I am not sure, but if it makes people more comfortable then I guess it serves a purpose. I just hope that with all of this information being spoon feed to us that we don’t become incapable as a nation, and dependant on these graphics to survive the simplest of task.
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