Placebo buttons provide the illusion of control

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Placebo buttons are 'false positives'. They're design elements that look like controls, but that actually don't do anything except to give you the illusion that you are in control. Both the NextNature and Design With Intent blog provide an interesting discussion on the subject. See also this 2004 story in the NYT on placebo buttons at pedestrian crossings.

[picture from NextNature]

2 reactions:

Gaël said...: Yeah, I always wondered about those pedestrian crossings. I even considered standing at one with a stopwatch to find out if the button had an effect on the traffic light. The impact on pedestrians' behavior would certainly be worthy of some serious study.; 10:27 AM
Jim Drew said...: Many stop lights are programmed to behave differently at different times of the day, such as having the left turn lane go before or after the rest of the light in the direction of heaviest travel (which changes between morning and night).

Many downtown lights are on timers during the day, when travel is heavy, and on sensors at night. And thus pressing the Walk button may not do anything during daylight hours, but will trigger the sensor later and on the weekend.

I have also seen some where the light is on a car sensor, and the walk light only comes on (and make the light stay green longer) when the button is pushed.; 12:25 AM