Press Me: The buttons that lie to you

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150415-the-buttons-that-do-nothing

by otoolep • 11 years ago

55 53 11 years ago

im3w1l• 11 years ago

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/

J-dawg• 11 years ago

Derren Brown did an interesting piece about the Skinner experiment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-FuV8LB3gU

JulianMorrison3• 11 years ago

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.

LukeB_UK2• 11 years ago

It's easy to get into 'thermostat wars' if everyone can change the temperature though. Some people (like myself) prefer it colder and can't work comfortably at the temperatures others prefer.

It may sound selfish, but I'm of the opinion that it should be set at the lowest level that people are comfortable with and then those who are too cold and put layers on.

JulianMorrison3• 11 years ago

The answer is to improve the heating system so it can be set per worker. This dovetails nicely with giving people rooms - and their own thermostat dial.

Death to open plan offices, I say.

TeMPOraL• 11 years ago

I totally agree with you. If you're too cold, you can dress up. I can't dress down from my t-shirt because you set up a fucking sauna in the office.

Raphmedia• 11 years ago

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.

JulianMorrison3• 11 years ago

Canned air is your friend, any time you want something very cold in a hurry.

cafard• 11 years ago

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.

at-fates-hands• 11 years ago

When I worked at one large corporation, they always kept the temp around 63ish. The sales people joked it was to keep us awake and dialing all day.

Of course they outlawed space heaters, but that didn't stop anybody from bringing them in. The funny part was trying to coordinate them so we could warm a certain set of cubes without blowing the fuse.

It was our way of getting some feeling of control back. It's interesting how important this is to people - to feel like they're in control of their surroundings.

sukilot5• 11 years ago

The fake thermostats, being fake, don't react to local temperature variation by changing system behavior. You need to find the real thermostats.

virulent• 11 years ago

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• 11 years ago

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• 11 years ago

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

madaxe_again• 11 years ago

Same here - and it's actually really quite bad for safety!

I walk to and from work every day, same route, same crossings, during daylight hours, the same sequence of traffic and crossing, to the degree where one watches the traffic lights and crosses as you see them change, rather than waiting for the pedestrian light.

Anyway, long story short, walked there one evening shortly after getting into this routine, and got halfway across the road before realising that the flow was evidently different at night, and required a button-push for the pedestrian interval.

If they just put up a sign that said "button needs pushing only between hours of X and Y" it'd probably help road safety and save frustration - although that goes contrary to the article. shrug

sukilot5• 11 years ago

Then all, the armchair traffic engineers will e complaining that the signs aren't accurate.

learnstats2• 11 years ago

If there's a button, I push it. I don't believe it will work all of the time. I believe it will work some of the time.

I also believe that the hardware is there so that the software can be changed.

I've seen plenty of people follow your strategy incorrectly, perhaps following an operational change that they haven't noticed. They are really just waiting for someone else to come and push the button.

DanielBMarkham2• 11 years ago

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.

sukilot5• 11 years ago

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

DanielBMarkham2• 11 years ago

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.

JackWebbHeller• 11 years ago

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/_...

RobAley2• 11 years ago

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!

ajanuary• 11 years ago

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

RobAley2• 11 years ago

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.

Kenji2• 11 years ago

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.

hellweaver666• 11 years ago

Are you sure? Have you ever risked not pressing the door open button on the train?

Kenji2• 11 years ago

Yes. The results I described have all actually happened.

metasean• 11 years ago

My experience is the same.

If I don't press the open door button on the train then the door doesn't open; if I press the button, then the door opens. One of my train start locations is at the end of the line. The train idles there for 10-15 minutes and because of supposed placebo buttons I've actually used this time to experiment and see if the doors will trigger based on anything other than the button and they do not.

In the same vain, I'm sure there are city intersections that always trigger regardless of pressing the button, but when I've had the time, I've waited patiently through up to three full rotations of intersection lights without getting a pedestrian crossing in either direction. But, lo-and-behold, when I finally press the button, I'll get the pedestrian light in my direction and the the other one still doesn't trigger.

quarterto• 11 years ago

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• 11 years ago

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.

crottypeter• 11 years ago

Maybe in zone 1, maybe in zone 2 ... at some stations you have to press the button to open the train doors.

erikb5• 11 years ago

These kind of buttons aren't commonplace in many areas of that planet. But they are very common in elevators for the door closing. In other areas I also have never seen one, but in many elevators of Berlin the button for closing the door isn't even connected to the electricity.

chrisBob• 11 years ago

The elevator door close buttons may not do anything most of the time, but they aren't there just for decoration. Their primary purpose is for emergency personnel who have turned the key to the emergency or firefighter setting. When in that mode the doors only open when you push open and only close when you push close.

I would be very surprised if you could confirm that you have been on an elevator where these buttons weren't wired up.

LukeB_UK2• 11 years ago

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.

throwaway77673• 11 years ago

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.

erikb5• 11 years ago

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.

throwaway77673• 11 years ago

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.

Yes, the old ones really did nothing. I just can't understand why they were put there. I tried pressing (and holding) them a few times, they had no vibration or anything like that. They've started removing them as the new, functional ones are installed, but it's hard to change people's habits.

The new ones both affect the traffic light timing and emit an audible signal for the blind.

mindslight• 11 years ago

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.

sukilot5• 11 years ago

The number of over thinkers who have been trained to never press a crosswalk button, and don't think to press it when they are waiting a long time, is vanishingly small and not worth he investment in maintaining signage to report the current programming of the button.

throwaway77673• 11 years ago

What you call "over thinkers", I call normal people. We are pattern matching machines. One must be pretty dim to not notice a pattern crossing the same street every day for years.

Your unsupported dismissal aside, clearly this is not a "vanishingly small" group. I mention this because the majority of pedestrians do not seem use the buttons. Those that do use them are mostly tourists.

I have no idea where you are going with your talk about signage. I don't expect a printed-out flowchart or ladder diagram at every intersection. But not putting up nonfunctional switches seems a small thing to ask, especially given the problems that result, as described in my post.

tonymillion• 11 years ago

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.

Elvie• 11 years ago

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.

TorKlingberg• 11 years ago

"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• 11 years ago

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• 11 years ago

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.

sukilot5• 11 years ago

My Skype just helpfully freezes and drops calls :-/

erikb5• 11 years ago

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.

frobozz• 11 years ago

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.

Press Me: The buttons that lie to you

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