31–40 of 108 posts
> Providing a plain black-and-white version was another standard recommendation at the time. But I can’t remember why – I certainly never actually saw a computer running Win95 or later with a B&W display! Windows 95 can be convinced to run in monochrome: http://toastytech.com/guis/miscw95bw.png (from http://toastytech.com/guis/misc2.html )
> I can’t remember why the lightning bolt was yellow. With hindsight that seems the strangest thing about it; cyan would have been a more obvious choice for electricity. Possibly it was just to contrast more with the blue screens of the computers. I had to stop and consider this, because it seemed to me that yellow was "obviously" the correct color. And indeed a few image searches confirmed this: a yellow lightning b…
this also caught my attention. the author also questions why the screens are blue I think he has just forgotten that in the late 90s, these color choices were entirely obvious and followed the Windows design precedent, which is why he probably didn't think much about it at the time
> I can’t remember why the lightning bolt was yellow. With hindsight that seems the strangest thing about it; cyan would have been a more obvious choice for electricity. Possibly it was just to contrast more with the blue screens of the computers. I had to stop and consider this, because it seemed to me that yellow was "obviously" the correct color. And indeed a few image searches confirmed this: a yellow lightning b…
Simon Tathum is British and I have never knowingly seen a lightning bolt coloured cyan hereabouts. Our "Danger of death" signs are black on yellow (1) To be fair an image search for lightning does look decidedly cyan on royal, with purple, red and more options. (1) https://www.hse.gov.uk/electricity/nearelectric.htm#signs
Congrats on the revamp. My ADD pixel brain always looked at the lightning bolt with cringe as it activates my OCD “pixel lines need to be perfect”.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Simon Tathum is British and I have never knowingly seen a lightning bolt coloured cyan hereabouts. Our "Danger of death" signs are black on yellow (1) To be fair an image search for lightning does look decidedly cyan on royal, with purple, red and more options. (1) https://www.hse.gov.uk/electricity/nearelectric.htm#signs
*Tatham
You decide!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Simon Tathum is British and I have never knowingly seen a lightning bolt coloured cyan hereabouts. Our "Danger of death" signs are black on yellow (1) To be fair an image search for lightning does look decidedly cyan on royal, with purple, red and more options. (1) https://www.hse.gov.uk/electricity/nearelectric.htm#signs
Perfectly documented warning stickers for everything is such a British thing. Together with fused plugs and on/off switches for every socket. As a foreigner who lived in London for a few years I believe the UK leads the world in self-deprecation. No country complains about itself more while being so absurdly well-organized.
The first time I saw one of these I stopped to take a picture. It just seems the most ridiculous thing to warn people about, as if somehow "elderly people" can't cross the road.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perfectly documented warning stickers for everything is such a British thing. Together with fused plugs and on/off switches for every socket. As a foreigner who lived in London for a few years I believe the UK leads the world in self-deprecation. No country complains about itself more while being so absurdly well-organized.
The "Elderly People" road signs win for me: https://c8.alamy.com/comp/2GYPJR6/an-elderly-people-roadside... The first time I saw one of these I stopped to take a picture. It just seems the most ridiculous thing to warn people about, as if somehow "elderly people" can't cross the road.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Simon Tathum is British and I have never knowingly seen a lightning bolt coloured cyan hereabouts. Our "Danger of death" signs are black on yellow (1) To be fair an image search for lightning does look decidedly cyan on royal, with purple, red and more options. (1) https://www.hse.gov.uk/electricity/nearelectric.htm#signs
Perfectly documented warning stickers for everything is such a British thing. Together with fused plugs and on/off switches for every socket. As a foreigner who lived in London for a few years I believe the UK leads the world in self-deprecation. No country complains about itself more while being so absurdly well-organized.
I note a z in organized ...
I do get where you are coming from: My mum used to joke about a fictional sign that said "Please do not throw stones at this sign". Some of our signage is absolutely laughable.
We do have road signs that proclaim: "New signage" or "New road system" etc. The locals know what has changed already and non locals are encountering it for the first time anyway, so why bother.
Across the entirety of the UK, our road signage is pretty rock solid. There may be a few degenerate cases but all sharp corners have chevron warning signs and they do save lives.
I was fortunate enough to spend a bunch of time hanging out with Simon in the 2000s and learned a great deal about a bewildering array of topics, and the above is such a representative example of the way he approaches problems.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perfectly documented warning stickers for everything is such a British thing. Together with fused plugs and on/off switches for every socket. As a foreigner who lived in London for a few years I believe the UK leads the world in self-deprecation. No country complains about itself more while being so absurdly well-organized.
"while being so absurdly well-organized." I note a z in organized ... I do get where you are coming from: My mum used to joke about a fictional sign that said "Please do not throw stones at this sign". Some of our signage is absolutely laughable. We do have road signs that proclaim: "New signage" or "New road system" etc. The locals know what has changed already and non locals are encountering it for the first time a…
I'm not sure it's as absurd as it sounds. Do you look at the signage you pass every day? I suspect I don't.
When they put in a new stop sign near where I live (in the US), things were less safe for a long time because people consistently drove through it without slowing. Since this was not a consistent problem with any other stop sign nearby, I believe it was not willful disobedience but people so used to there being no stop sign there that they literally didn't see it.
(Even with literal neon pennants on it, people kept driving through it anyway, but you'd at least sometimes see people skid to a stop partway through the intersection, presumably as their brains caught up. And eventually it penetrated locals' consciousnesses, and now they stop.)
