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To be a better UI/UX designer, go to a foreign country, rent a car, and drive.

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Re: To be a better UI/UX designer, go to a foreign country, rent a car, and drive.

#34

Post by rmk2 »

zwieback wrote: post #27
tjansen wrote: post #2

My pet peeve in Europe is the positioning of traffic lights. It drives me crazy that they not on the opposite side of the intersection, like in the US, but at the stop line. If you are in the first car at the stop line, then they are right above you and you have to crawl under the windshield to see them. Worst usability ever.

The street lights were the most confusing thing moving from Germany to the US. The first year or so my heart often jumped when I felt like I was running a red light after turning right on a green. Now when I go back after driving in the US for 20 years there are a lot of things that seem weird in Germany. Not having right-on-red (and even left on red into one-ways) is a huge plus here. I also think there's too much y…

> I also think there's too much yielding to the car coming from much smaller streets on the right.

That's a feature though, since it is usually used in residential areas to slow down traffic and force people to stop more frequently, instead of just rolling through at 30...who are we kidding, 40+ Km/h.

Re: To be a better UI/UX designer, go to a foreign country, rent a car, and drive.

#38

Post by podperson »

___1___ wrote: post #35

Having just returned from the USA, I must admit, whilst I strongly dislike like the "car culture" the street were incredibly well sign posted. A pet hate of mine here in the UK are missing signs.

There's a new philosophy of road safety in Europe based around reducing the usability of roads for drivers and increasing it for pedestrians. (You might say that it follows as a lemma from the observation that Volvo drivers have more accidents.)

E.g. if you make the boundary between "road" and "not road" less clear and remove lane markings, drivers will drive more carefully. (Amazing!) I visited some towns in Switzerland a few years ago that have taken this approach to extremes -- there are no hard boundaries between road and sidewalk, seven-way intersections (with trams) and no traffic lights -- and it works well (especially for pedestrians).

Re: To be a better UI/UX designer, go to a foreign country, rent a car, and drive.

#39

Post by iooi »

tjansen wrote: post #6
GotAnyMegadeth wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Some of the traffic lights in some European countries. This is not the case in most of England, also in France there is often another set of lights lower down on the pole positioned for the driver in the car in the front of the queue.

Here in Germany as well, but then it gets really confusing. My favorite example is this intersection: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=K%C3%BChlwetterstra%C3%9Fe,+D... It has three lights, only two of them positioned at the stop line.

Why is there a huge blurred building in this particular interserction?

Re: To be a better UI/UX designer, go to a foreign country, rent a car, and drive.

#40

Post by iso8859-1 »

tjansen wrote: post #6
GotAnyMegadeth wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Some of the traffic lights in some European countries. This is not the case in most of England, also in France there is often another set of lights lower down on the pole positioned for the driver in the car in the front of the queue.

Here in Germany as well, but then it gets really confusing. My favorite example is this intersection: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=K%C3%BChlwetterstra%C3%9Fe,+D... It has three lights, only two of them positioned at the stop line.

What is the problem here? You expected more at the stop line? Why?
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