Friday, October 14, 2005

Even if I wanted to...

Even if I wanted to, I couldn't do it. OK...so here's something I've been thinking about lately-- useless insignificant inapt pointless senseless additional information (i'll call it UIIPSAI & obviosly use more words than necessary to stress my point). The NYC Transit seems to really like using this UIIPSAI process. Many times I have seen signs that just tell me something that is completely irrelevant. For example: I have seen signs that say "no transfers at this station" or "the E train runs express this weekend from Roosevelt Ave. to Queens Plaza" or (my personal favorite) "no tokens at this time". Why bother wasting all of that signage & ad space to tell me I can't do something even if I wanted to do it? Transfers: If I wanted to transfer at the station with the sign, I couldn't anyway...so why bother to tell me I can't. The E Train: the E always runs express on the weekends from Roosevelt to the Plaza...so why tell me it is still doing what it always does?? The tokens: I LOVE when I see this sign!! Tokens were pretty much retired from use within the subway system a few years ago. There is no place to even put a token if you had one & wanted to use it to pay your fare. This information telling me "no tokens at this time" is just silly & useless. This is like putting up a sign at Starbucks that says "we don't have inexpensive coffee right now". (nor will they ever, if I wanted to get cheap coffee there, I couldn't). Or a sign at a sushi place that says "we don't have burgers today". I think the philosophy that may go with this extra signage seems silly. The people that put the signs up in the Subway may think "we'll put up more information so we don't confuse people." Yes, there is something to be said for clear communication & that is SOOO important. However, on that road to strive for clear communication we can tend to over stress our point or give UIIPSAI that confuses the other party & may steer them in the wrong direction. Clear communication....yes VERY important. UIIPSAI....too too much & potentially causes further confusion. Consider yourselves warned-- Beware of UIIPSAI.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

kinda reminds me of my pet signage peeve. on highways, it often will say, "FINES DOUBLED IN WORK ZONES." meaning of course, that fines ARE doubled in work zones. the Sign Maker thinks it's easier to leave off the verb ARE to make the message more concise. but i say, hey, why not make the sentence in active voice (which is better than passive anyway) and just say "FINES DOUBLE IN WORK ZONES." it's a complete sentence with no need to eliminate a verb. good'nuff, right?