Students in SVA’s Interaction Design MFA program took a stab at design challenges within the system. Several of the projects I felt created problems where there weren’t any in order to come up with something clever.
However the ReDirect project by student Russ Maschmeyer found an obviously problematic information design question and created a very elegant solution.
Of his project he comments:
“Service changes are bad. Very, very bad. They often involve doubling, sometimes tripling the time it takes you to get where you’re going. To add insult to injury, the accompanying service change signage is such a riddle of dates, times, and re-directions that it often requires multiple readings to glean even a basic understanding of the change. For any transit system experiencing redirects, there are four key messages that need to be conveyed: alert the riders to a change, provide a quick overview of that change, course correct any wayward travelers, and finally, guide riders through the hallways to the proper platforms. If done right, no one should have to stop to study a sign, but study them we do. Currently, the MTA employs a single, densely packed sheet of 8.5x11” paper to convey an entire set of messaging. This is a problem worth solving.
Amen to all that. Simple, clear, and fixed something badly in need of fixing.
