
Press Me: The buttons that lie to you - otoolep
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150415-the-buttons-that-do-nothing
======
DanielBMarkham
My personal belief is that designers of equipment and interfaces have a moral
obligation to present the operation of the equipment in as simplistic and non-
manipulative a manner as possible.

Yes, there are some social/mental benefits to lying to people. It's a very
nuanced and complex topic, however, and I seriously doubt the people who make
these things are thinking through all the ramifications. Instead I think
they're just making stuff that causes the least amount of complaining.

But think about the endgame here. Do we really want semi-intelligent computers
shading information in such a way to make us happier? Facebook already is
doing its damnedest to keep all of us from insulting each other accidentally,
thereby losing online "friendships". It's in Facebook's best interest that
more people use the site and enjoy it. But it's in _my_ best interest to meet
and socialize with people who may have widely divergent viewpoints -- even if
it means stepping on some toes now and then.

Ever wonder why the world is more and more becoming an echo chamber for little
niches of belief systems? Want more of that?

Society's interest to self-correct, to have difficult conversations. It's in
manufacturer's interests to create things that make people happy. These
interests are not aligned. More troublesome, the more we get what we want, the
worse our self-correcting feedback loops breakdown. Not a good thing.

~~~
sukilot
Divergent view points doesn't mean listening to someone constantly barging
into your home yelling obscenities.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
No, it does not. However history has shown us that we tend to view peaceful
persuasion as folks being terribly rude and obscene -- especially when people
are trying to persuade us of the wrongness of our ways.

This means that free speech is not optimized for the individual; it's
optimized for the evolution of the society as a whole. Technology, on the
other hand, _is_ optimized for the individual.

------
throwaway7767
When I was growing up, we had lots of these. None of the pedestrian buttons
did anything (neither sped up the light nor made noise/indications for the
blind). The result was that people learned to ignore them.

Fast forward to now, when the city is trying to become less car-centric, and
new buttons are being put up that actually work (when you press them, the
pedestrian lane becomes the next in line for the green light, and if you don't
press it then it only very rarely or never gets green).

The result is people become agitated at the how slow the pedestrian lights go,
because of course noone presses the button when they've been trained not to.

These kinds of design patterns will come back to bite you. Make things
transparent and don't try to manipulate people like this.

~~~
erikb
That might be why people don't press the button near my work. I am always
confused why there are people standing at the red traffic light of a rather
small street without seeing any cars and without pressing the button, willing
to wait for 10 minutes without realizing that they have missed something.
Pressing that specific button at least results in 10 seconds waiting time if
there is no car, and the light will never switch without the button.

Btw. do you really have traffic light buttons that don't do anything? Here in
Berlin many automatic traffic lights have something that looks like a button
but actually isn't one. Underneath is vibrating button that will show blind
people that it's green without a sound. Many many people don't see that this
is not a button, and don't think a moment about the blind sign (yellow ground,
three black dots) on top of it and press it anyway, hoping it has an effect.

~~~
mindslight
> _willing to wait for 10 minutes_

Wtf? This kind of programmed helplessness deserves some studying too. I
generally wait ~60 seconds or one light cycle, after which I ignore the broken
light and proceed on my own. Traffic lights are there to mediate between
people, not exert iron-clad control over them.

~~~
erikb
Nearly literally what I'm thinking seeing that every week.

------
Kenji
Weird, I can't think of a single such placebo button that I press in my
everyday life. Maybe this technique isn't as widespread here. For example, if
I don't press the button on pedestrian crossings, it'll never go green. If I
don't press the button of the train door, it won't open or the train will even
skip the station if nobody presses the button.

That being said, I hate the new trend of 'touch' buttons. I really like a
tactile feedback, telling me that the mechanism registered my interaction. It
feels more solid and reliable.

~~~
quarterto
On the London Underground, every single "Open Door" button is a placebo. All
of the doors open all of the time (unless the platform's too short). It's not
the case on main line trains or the Docklands Light Railway.

~~~
notauser
They sometimes active the Open Door buttons at outdoor stations when it is
very cold / snowing.

For example I've been on an underground train where this happened at Hendon
station on the Northern Line.

------
JulianMorrison
Any thermostat with a placebo button is basically telling workers, we don't
care if you are suffering in stuffy or shivering working conditions, because
we know better. It's arrogant and condescending and manipulative, it speaks
very badly of management, and I would be sorely tempted to smash it with a
rock.

~~~
Raphmedia
Don't smash it with a rock. Cover it, blow a fan over it or set a very hot
laptop next to it, if you want changes in temperature.

~~~
cafard
Ah, yes. One winter bout 25 years ago we wondered why the thermostat seemed to
have no relation to the temperature of the office. Then somebody noticed that
there was a LaserJet immediately under it. Moving the printer worked nicely.

But there was no such easy fix one summer when the techies with a south window
were cooking and the boss with a north window was just right. The boss
resisted all efforts at a compromise.

------
JackWebbHeller
Although they may seem redundant, buttons on pedestrian crossings are vital
for disabled people to know when it is safe to cross.

Most UK crossings beep when it's safe to cross (for the blind), and have small
jagged cones[1] on the bottom that can be felt spinning around in your hand
(for the deaf and blind).

[1]
[http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/media/images/67872000/jpg/_...](http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/media/images/67872000/jpg/_67872106_xpdc_2603.jpg)

~~~
RobAley
But don't they all beep/rotate the cone even when the button hasn't been
pressed? The ones near me (in the UK) which are on a junction and operate
cyclically (in conjunction with a couple of sets of traffic lights) certainly
do. I've given up leaning over from my bike to push the button when I realised
this!

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im3w1l
There is a classic experiment on pigeons on how to create superstitions
behaviour, i.e. behaviour that the pigeons think produces the desired outcome
but actually does nothing.

[http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Skinner/Pigeon/](http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Skinner/Pigeon/)

~~~
J-dawg
Derren Brown did an interesting piece about the Skinner experiment:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-FuV8LB3gU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-FuV8LB3gU)

------
tonymillion
The tube train buttons do, in fact, work - but they only activate when the
train is at an outdoors station and the driver has enabled them.

The London Overground functions exactly like this.

In addition in a previous life of actually programming pedestrian crossing
systems, the button does in fact have an effect (or did). It sets a flag on
the system which is checked after a predetermined set of time to see if the
lights should stop traffic. Its all highly dependent on the road system,
however.

------
virulent
> A crossing in central London had programmed intervals for red and green
> lights, for example. Pushing the button would only impact the length of
> these intervals between midnight and 7am.

This is the same where I live. The crossing buttons do nothing during the day
(walk symbols still come on for the same length of time), but at night they
need to be used. I don't push it during the day, but of course most people
still do :-)

~~~
chriswarbo
> I don't push it during the day, but of course most people still do :-)

I always push the button at pedestrian crossings, even though I'm aware it
often does nothing.

Is that because it "creates a sense of togetherness with strangers which might
otherwise be absent"? Is it because "doing something is better than doing
nothing"? Is it because my "attention is on the activity at hand"?

No, it's because at some crossings, at some times, it has an effect; and
life's too short to construct a mental record of the reverse-engineered
temporal programming of traffic lights.

~~~
andrey-p
Plus, it gives you something to do while you wait. More socially acceptable
than picking your nose if anything.

------
erikb
For the office's window automation systems there are buttons in our building,
but they are always overwritten by automatic behaviour. So you open the blinds
and while you do it the automation system thinks it would be better closed and
starts closing it again, completely ignoring that you are currently pressing
the button.

------
LukeB_UK
I guess it depends where you are. I'm in the north of England and all the
crossings I've come across won't go green until I've pressed the button to say
I want to cross. Same with train doors, I've never come across a train where
I've not had to press the button to open the door.

------
ajanuary
Buttons at pedestrian crossings have a use beyond controlling the lights - it
triggers the visual, physical and audio feedback for when it's safe to cross.

At work there is a crossing at some traffic lights that doesn't have a button.
This means you have to crane your head awkwardly to try and watch the traffic
lights for when they're red and it's safe to cross. It's even worse for the
visually impaired, as there is no noise or cone. [1]

[1] [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-
ouch-22706881](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-22706881)

~~~
RobAley
As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the ones with buttons (at least near
me) that operate (at least part of the time) automatically don't require the
button be pushed to trigger the beep/cone. These happen when the pedestrian
light goes green, regardless of if the button is pushed or not.

------
frobozz
> Whether or not the designers of pedestrian crossing technology took an
> interest in our psyches is unclear, as no-one seems able to confirm when the
> buttons were first made intermittently ineffective, at least in the UK.

I would be very surprised if these buttons were originally devised as
placebos, then eventually connected up when someone decided that when someone
uses a button that purports to indicate their desire to cross, it might be
desirable for it to have an effect on the signals on that crossing.

------
TorKlingberg
"Adar and his co-authors also describe how Skype phone calls today sometimes
contain “fake static noise” because when users experience a completely noise
free line, they are prone to thinking that the call has in fact dropped."

Cell phones have been doing this since the first GSM phones. Look up "comfort
noise". It saves bandwidth by not actually transmitting low level background
noise.

~~~
JoshTriplett
> Cell phones have been doing this since the first GSM phones. Look up
> "comfort noise". It saves bandwidth by not actually transmitting low level
> background noise.

It'd be nice if this could be disabled, in favor of a clearer call.

~~~
otoolep
I used to write code for Nortel, and heard all about "comfort noise". When I
discussed it with senior engineers I understood it was only transmitted when
the line would otherwise be quiet. It's not superimposed on existing noise.

------
Elvie
Even though sometimes you look like a tpurise (on the London underground for
example), in the London Overground you do need to press the button or your
specific door will not open...

I think knowing which buttons are placebo, and which work does give you a
happy sense of smugness similar to knowing exactly the door to get in and off
the train when you need it.

