Ambient Signifiers - Boxes and Arrows
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“Although subtle, this technique has a noticeable impact on assisting passengers to their destinations and so increases efficiencies in the rail network.”
One task we face on a day-to-day basis is how to effectively communicate ever-increasing amounts of information within increasingly richer and more complex web contexts. While living in Japan, I discovered an approach used as part of the way-finding system of Tokyo’s rail network that has a number of interesting implications for user interface design.
Tokyo’s rail system is famous for being the most complicated and bewildering in the world. With over 1,000 stations, even locals get lost and disoriented. As a designer, I try to be aware of attempts at systems and methods of communication. While traveling the Tokyo rail lines, I quickly realized that apart from the obvious use of real-time electronic signage, colored trains, and audio announcements, there were also other techniques being used to assist travelers in knowing where they were, and where they were going. These techniques were subtler, and bordered on subliminal; this was what really interested me.
When on my regular commute on Japan Railways (JR) East’s Chuo-Sobu line out from the town center to the outer suburbs where I lived, I noticed that short, simple chime melodies sounded on each platform as the train was waiting for passengers to get on and off. I noticed that these melodies were different for each station (indeed, Miyama station, which disembarks to Tokyo Disneyland, plays the theme to “It’s A Small World After All").
Of course, some of the trips on this network are irregular and spontaneous, and in those situations, the melodies are merely signals for when a train has stopped at the station. However, for the majority of JR East’s 20 million daily users, trips tend to be end-to-end commutes between their home and work, sometimes involving as many as three transfers. Because it is not uncommon for these trips to take over an hour, passengers tend to pass the time by reading small pocket novels, playing with their portable gaming systems, or furiously programming their cellphones. Coupled with these distractions, Tokyo seen from a train, is monotonous and indistinct, so establishing one’s location visually must be an active exercise.
To daily commuters, the station melodies augment the existing ambient landscape (going through tunnels, turning corners, large landmarks, etc.), so despite not necessarily paying attention to the visual cues around them, travelers subconsciously start building up a “landscape” of their journey based on these audible inputs. They quickly learn the melody of their final destination terminal (it is played incessantly as they wait on the platform for their return journey), and soon recognize the melody of the terminal that precedes theirs. After long-term use of the same route, commuters build up a unique chain of melodies that accompany them on their way home. Without necessarily realizing why, they begin to establish a familiarity with these sounds, and can quickly discover when they have overshot their destination by hearing an unfamiliar melody that indicates a strange place.
I call these cues ambient signifiers: design elements that communicate subtly as part of the environment’s ambiance. Although subtle, this technique has a noticeable impact on assisting passengers to their destinations and so increases efficiencies in the rail network. When dealing with such large congestion and complexity, any efficiency improvements will have massive benefits for both the rail infrastructure and Tokyo itself.
The reason for discussing this is not to demonstrate how amazing the Tokyo rail network is (it is!), but to learn from this approach. We can draw parallels between transport networks and their passengers, and websites and their users: both can be complex structures; both have navigable routes and destinations; and both can involve large groups of people using routes with the aid of wayfinding tools. Both also involve users dealing with a sensory overload of sounds, distractions, visual noise, and time constraints. For large-scale websites, the number of users may even be similar to large transport networks, and any efficiency improvement can have a positive impact on both user experience and overheads such as bandwidth and server load. This approach also has business benefits: users will make fewer mistakes; there will be fewer customer support issues; and fewer repair and maintenance.
There are differences between the two concepts that are subtler, however, and arguably more important. When dealing with transport, not all passengers are taking one journey with a common source and destination. Instead, they are constantly getting on and off routes to complete their own unique journeys. With websites, there are usually established paths that tend to have beginning and end points with little need to...