A/B testing: fun-da-mental stairs versus the escalator
– posted October 13th, 2009 by Laurence Veale Comments (5)
Brian’s recent blog post was all about elevators. This one’s for the escalators who are beginning to feel a little left out.
In the pursuit for usability or the often intangible user experience, we can easily forget about one of the greatest experiences, fun. The end result is often a mundane, utilitarian design.
Just look at how these designers have altered users’ behaviour by introducing fun into their design.
5 comments so far
1. Paul Adams on Oct 14th, 2009 - 01:16
I love this as a piece of art (or as an advertising campaign). But imagine if every flight of stairs did the same. I’m sure that it wouldn’t take very long for the 66% to jump back on the escalator.
Another way to look at this problem would be to think about the impact of one’s actions. For example, place two huge signs - one at the top of the stairs, one at the top of the escalator.
Escalator sign:
Calories burned: 0
Stairs sign:
Calories burned: 30
2. Randall Snare on Oct 14th, 2009 - 09:33
Nice pun, Lar. It’s fun-tastic. Magni-fun-cent, even.
3. johno on Oct 14th, 2009 - 10:12
Fantastic. It’s a worthy tourist attraction that.
4. Laurence Veale on Oct 14th, 2009 - 10:15
@Randall does that count as a triple pun fun score? The fun, the da from the keys and the mental, good design?
5. Laurence Veale on Oct 14th, 2009 - 10:17
Hi Paul, I don’t think I’d ever get tired of it. Doing “scales” underpins a good piano player’s skills. Besides, you could go “social” with it and encourage people to do duets. However, you could get a bottleneck where some virtuoso wants to complete an opus.