New York City recently redesigned its subway train arrival times. In a LinkedIn post, Mark Krawczuk writes about how the seemingly small changes to the signs have made them more readable.
The upgrade, he says, has "quietly improved my commute — and my quality of life." And it has no doubt improved the quality of life of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of commuters who use the subway system.
Here's Mark's photo of one of the old signs:
Note the monospaced, uppercase text. Note the lack of visual hierarchy. And while you can't see them in a photo, Mark says the screen refreshes were "jarring."
Now look at Mark's photo of one of the new signs:
The typography is cleaner and no longer monospaced and in uppercase. Superfluous elements have been stripped out, and the animation between updates is smoother than the old signs.
Mark says "the magic is in the invisible work":
The best systems feel effortless because teams sweat the details. Behind this "small" win? Countless hours of research, testing, and coordination — the kind of work that rarely gets applause but makes all the difference.
Visit his post to see a video of the signs in action.
Previously:
• The man who literally sniffed out the problems in NYC's subway
• Live crabs escape on NYC subway, chaos ensues
• New York City gets first decent subway map since the 1970s
