links for 2008-06-27 :: Architectures of Control

Vox Popoli: The importance of condescension

Amazing stylised rant about ‘other people’s incompetence’ interacting with a ticket machine in the Paris Metro…

(tags: rant usability interaction interactiondesign interface ticketmachine Paris design)
TDWTF Forums - The importance of condescension

…inspiring this wonderful riposte. I have some sympathy with both points of view, but fundamentally, I’d rather design a system that people can use, than make them feel stupid for not understanding it.

(tags: usability interface interactiondesign ticketmachine Paris design interaction)
BBC NEWS | England | Merseyside | Jail for helicopter laser prank

So this results in a prison sentence. What would be the legality of using a mirror against the kind of temporary blindness-inducing helicopter-borne light mentioned here http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2006/09/28/countercontrol-blind-pilots/ ?

(tags: laser helicopter liberty technology blinding light bright)
Seth’s Blog: Learning from frustration

“The person calling in is a person, a customer, potentially a blogger, potentially the CEO of a company you might want to sell to tomorrow, and yes, the person you’ve spent all that time and money marketing to.”

(tags: customerservice userexperience badprofits users customers businessmodel)
The war on photographers - you’re all al Qaeda suspects now | The Register

Incisive review by John Ozimek of the arbitrary, FUD-laden approach to public photography in Britain today.

(tags: photography photograph rights liberty freedom control)
Editorial Photographers UK | Met Police to relax London photography restrictions in pilot scheme

A well-thought-out, realistically doublespoken 1st April story linked from the Register article, with (unfortunately) more than a little scent of truth about it.

(tags: photography rights control restriction liberty urbanism)
Dutch government gags Oyster researchers | The Register

From one of the comments: “Any system, like Oyster, can only hope to have a finite life. They need to expect to have to do a thorough review every couple of years to see whether the system needs to be replaced. Obviously this review needs to be independen

(tags: Oyster circumvention restriction control security securityresearch hacking)
Because FUD is cheap | MBA Geek

“While I’m perfectly happy with incentivising customers to achieve required behaviours, I’m not sure I’m so keen on FUD being used to achieve lower costs.”

(tags: FUD airports customers badprofits userexperience businessmodel)
Now passengers have to pay £1 to use airport luggage trolleys | Mail Online

This is (I think) a perfect example of Fred Reichheld’s ‘bad profits’ concept (http://www.netpromoter.com/netpromoter/bad-profits.php ). In the short-term, Luton airport will extract more value from their customers. In the long term, their customers will

(tags: rentseeking coercion badprofits userexperience customers)
Accident-free zone: The German town which scrapped all traffic lights and road signs | Mail Online

Successful Shared Space implementation: “Officials wanted to test the theory that the 13,000 drivers who use the town every day would take extra care and show each other greater consideration if they were not told what to do.”

(tags: sharedspace motoring signage urban architecture driving builtenvironment)

2 Responses to “links for 2008-06-27”

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1 Crosbie Fitch
Jun 29th, 2008 at 10:01 am

I’m dismayed to see that the EPUK article forgot a far more dangerous criminal class that should be subject to control on London’s streets: Intellectual property thieves.

These photographers take high quality digital photos of commercial valuable properties whether of architecture, precious artworks in museums, or commercial iconography.

Even the Americans recognise the triumvirate felons of the information age: terrorists, psychopathic sexual deviants, and IP thieves. And of course, the corresponding classes of contraband: training manuals, obscene imagery, and unauthorised copies of copyrighted works.

Only two of these threaten lives, but the other is far more dangerous: it threatens the livelihoods of corporations.
2 Kaleberg
Jun 30th, 2008 at 4:40 am

1) Don’t play down those little lasers. They are NOT toys. They are seriously bright. They can blind a pilot for MINUTES. You can’t get glare like that from a mirror reflecting helicopter lights. I just can’t work up a lot of sympathy for the moron.

(There was a similar case in New Jersey some time back. Some idiot was blinding pilots on approach to some airport there).

2) My experience with self serve ticketing machines in Paris was a bit different. We were waiting on a huge line at the Louvre, watching people fumble about with their backpacks, herding their restless children, and killing time with idle conversation as we were. Then we noticed a completely unused vending kiosk. One of us detached from the line, credit card at the ready and returned in less than a minute, tickets in hand. We gave up our slot in the line, but curiously, no one else followed us to the kiosk.