Layers of compromise
Do not beat carpet or rocks with club, and observe rules of golf etiquette? Who can live up to that? (Photo by John Margolies)
Back in Atlanta after some time away, I am catching up on the changes.
I walked past a new development on the way to another new development and saw tidy signs to the left of each front door of a row of townhomes. "Private Residence," each sign proclaimed, in white lettering on a black background. A compulsive reader, I couldn't help scanning each one as I went by: Private Residence, Private Residence, Private Residence, Private Residence.
I chuckled, imagining my own tiny home in Maine, a house that couldn’t possibly be anything else, with a "private residence" sign in front of it. I could put one next to the lilac bush, or maybe by the boat wintering alongside the driveway.
A city is noisy, not just aurally but visually. These signs added to the noise. What was it about these homes — these buildings — that suggested that they were anything other than private residences? What potential problems were the signs meant to preempt?
Was I, a passerby, expected to be confused enough by the building's design to accidentally wander through someone's front door, expecting to hear the tinkling bells of a boutique?
I wonder if there could have been some other way to indicate that the building was a home without having to explicitly say so.
And I wonder if the signs actually do anything to improve anyone’s behavior.
From Seth Godin, I learned to think critically about signs. When is a sign necessary, and when is the sign an indication (a sign, haha) of a design flaw or a breakdown in a system?
It's seductive to think that we can fix a thing by adding a layer. When that doesn't work, we add another. When we keep adding these layers without addressing the root cause of the confusion, we should know that we're making a compromise.
Such a compromise makes sense when we decide to put up a sign that tells people they shouldn't flush baby wipes and paper towels down toilets instead of developing a plumbing system that can withstand objects that aren't meant to be flushed down toilets.
However, whenever possible, we should question the layer of compromise we're adding. Might there be another way to accomplish our goal that has fewer steps, fewer rules and regs, fewer signs, and fewer opportunities for people to get it wrong even when they're doing their best?
Even as I say this, I know this approach doesn't necessarily fix anything. My parents' Honda minivan has a push-button ignition and transmission paired with an engine that shuts off automatically when the brake is fully depressed. That means when you press the button to put the car in park, you actually turn the engine back on. The car wants me to simplify — to skip a step — but it feels so darn weird to turn off the ignition without first putting the car in park. Simpler doesn't actually make it better — it just increase the likelihood that when I go back to my own Obama-era vehicle, I'll forget to put it into park and roll into a bush.
So I guess the signs (Private Residence, Private Residence, Private Residence) are there to do a job, and they do it fairly benignly. It's easier to plant a sign than it is to redesign a building, put up a fence, or install a motion alarm. But I'm never going to stop noticing and questioning whether a given sign, procedure, or protocol is really needed or whether there's a way to make things smoother or more streamlined. I might not find a way to make things better, but it's good practice to try.
