Design
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Never be confused by a signaling bus again, assuming you frequently drive behind buses instead of taking public transit (you monster)
automotive, blinker, car, emergency blinkers, hazard lights, is amber even a color or what, is the light yellow or amber or orange or what, official color names are lacking, what are those emergency lights even called, what if the lights are like tangerine or something, who came up with that double triangle icon anyway
Background: Every vehicle has two turn signals on the back. These can indicate one of two things: 1) Car is turning left / right. 2) If both lights are blinking: “hazard / emergency / vehicle is stopped in roadway.” Fig 1: The emergency / hazard lights are usually activated by this button. The issue: Unfortunately,…
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Background: Housing is incredibly expensive in many major cities. Some people try to cope with high housing prices by living in their cars. However, it is generally illegal to sleep in a parked vehicle. Additionally, there are often restrictions on vehicle height for parked vehicles. Proposal: None of the caveats above apply to a moving…
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Background: Relatively few games have equipment choice as an element. For example, in tennis, there is no such thing as a “lob racquet” versus a “serving racquet.” Presumably this is because of the difficulty in quickly switching out equipment in a time-sensitive sports. But in a game like golf, where there is plenty of time…
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The issue: When driving long distances, maintaining situational awareness on a boring stretch of road can be difficult. Additionally, distractions such as in-car music may prevent natural audio cues (for example, the sound of nearby cars) from being noticed by the driver. Proposal for the “AudioNav” car navigation aid: By using an array of rangefinders…
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Background: Conference posters are frequently 4 by 6 feet, which means that in the best-case scenario, they will still be four feet long when rolled up. This is still quite cumbersome. Although relatively few individuals are plagued by the difficulty of handling rolled-up posters, their plight has not gone un-noticed. The state of the art:…
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Background: Art galleries are generally arranged by either genre (for example, “portraits” or “landscapes”) or a period in history (e.g. “Renaissance Italy, 1350–1500”). The issue: This traditional organizational scheme results in dozens of similar works in close proximity, which leads to the following problem: after a person has seen ten masterpiece portraits of Venetian nobles,…
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Background: Phone woes: when you use text or call someone, there’s no way to differentiate between the following scenarios: Low priority (not time-sensitive): “Let’s chat, if you have time.” Medium priority (time-sensitive): “I just showed up at the crowded convention center, but I can’t find you.” High priority (important and time-sensitive): “Your car is about to…
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Background: Many product names are ambiguous when used as a keyword in a web search. For example, in the most egregious hypothetical case, if you had a program named “The” it would be almost impossible to do an English-language search for it. Imagine searching for “The problem,” or “The crashing when I load too many…
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As previously discussed on this very site, “gamification” is a hot topic in the world of behavioral influence. The car manufacturer Qoros (观致汽车) (Wikipedia link) is attempting to use this technique in the automotive world. The picture below (from the electronic dashboard of a 2015 Qoros sedan) displays the “Beat the Line” achievement. Unfortunately, a full…
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Background: Old 8-bit video games typically do not adhere to modern standards of occupational safety or handicapped-accessibility. The issue: The issue we will deal with here is making an old game, in this case, Zelda II for the Nintendo Entertainment System, properly compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. Obviously this will be simplified,…
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