Somebody Designed That Gesture

Pressing a button to cross, plating dinner for a phone, waiting for a driverless car to slow down. Each started as a design decision.

Ian Bogost’s recent Atlantic essay, The Gestures We’ve Forgotten, begins with him turning the crank on a souvenir penny press with no penny in it, because he likes how it feels. His subject is what our bodies stop doing as cranks and dials disappear. Designers tend to ask a smaller question about gesture. They test whether people can find the control and get the result they wanted. Then the product launches, and people repeat the gesture in front of each other for years. What it comes to mean rarely gets tested.

The crossing button is easy to find and easy to press, so it passes a usability test. It also makes the person on foot ask for a turn that drivers get on a schedule. Press it enough times and waiting for permission starts to feel like how streets have always worked.