Like many of us, alumni Nikki Sylianteng has misinterpreted parking signs and gotten one-too-many tickets, as a result.
Sick of the overly verbose signage, Nikki took things into her own hands, creating user-centered signs that remove the guesswork. She has been testing them out guerrilla-style starting with the parking sign under her own apartment window. This participatory design project was recently profiled in Atlantic magazine’s “By Design” section.
Sylianteng’s approach uses blocks of red and green, similar to a Google calendar’s, to indicate when parking is allowed; all drivers need to do is match the day of the week to the time of day. As critics soon noted, her design leaves out some crucial information: different rules for commercial vehicles, for example, and for the segments of curb on either side of the signs. She is working on incorporating these elements, as well as symbols for color-blind drivers, into a new model.
Read the full article and follow To Park or Not to Park to see the signs develop.
