Human centred design – how does our infrastructure communicate dicoverability, give feedback, further affordance, provide signifiers of use? We reflect on concepts put forward by Don Norman on product design, looking at safety compliance and ease of use on roads and paths.
00:00 News Roundup from around the country, including Manchester Bikes on Trams with Kathy (and Dame Sarah Storey), dramatic plans in Edinburgh and the latest political, consultation and funding announcements.
20:30 Ranty Highwayman Mark on the User Experience and examples of human-centred design that promote easy use of active travel. What discoverability is required from a signal to cross? Does a zebra crossing give enough feedback for all users? What designs increase. safety compliance because all users can understand what they are meant to do
Brilliant there you go right so everybody we’re going to start with a really uh hopefully in-depth news Roundup uh of what’s been going on on either in your areas uh over the course of last week on active travel but also um I’m sure there are some people and I
Know Adan I think you want to come in um on the announcements on Sunday uh and the um the sort of continued war against what we like to see of um on active travel and then we got Mark uh rany highwomen um giving us a presentation around these experience so that’s the
Plan uh the news Roundup will take about 20 minutes on and then over to our speakers uh don’t forget we will share presentations after the session um so that’s the plan for the next oh hour and 10 minutes okay brilliant so I’m going to kick us off with um our um news Round
Up Kathy that was quick Off the Mark brilliant work come in please yeah just following on from last week uh when I said I was going to be on the bikes on tram’s uh trial so that happened yesterday morning um and uh I put posted something in the
Chat but uh Dame Sarah story was there and we got on a tram and we went along on the tram and then we came back again and the world didn’t end it was great um because after 30 years of trying to campaign for this it was just really
Easy to do so I’m just hoping the rest of the trial goes really well um and that we get a positive outcome from this um because it’s so accessible just being able to wheel your bike onto a tram compared with using the trains so fingers crossed thanks Kathy that’s brilliant um
Obviously because I’m in Grace Manchester along with you been a long time coming hasn’t it and uh you know for a small but very passionate group of us it’s it’s quite an emotional moment it was and I mean I hadn’t realize quite how much I’d be photographed in taking part in this
Inaugural bit of the trial but um it was just really great and the whole vibe around the morning was really positive so uh you know we were query you know questioned about how it had been for us but quite frankly it just like we did it
It really was no big deal so there you go amazing brilliant thanks Kathy how exciting uh bikes on trams right we’re going to come to oh this is always a deep breath moment everybody H is your kit working are you going to come through loud and clear it is it is um I
Just to comment on Kathy SC I just chat is actually I’ve got a picture of Roger gin with his bike on a Manchester tra about six years ago um they were always going on TRS and uh about 15 years ago I did a paper with gmcc and we totally shot to Pieces every
Argument they put but it’s taken a long time and what’s been very good has been the fact that we’ve done it in a pilot phase where they can dip their toe in the water and feed it we did the same with DLR and i’ just chasing Lise Cheeseman now because she’s now in
Charge of the bus and ground transport strategy in London um so there’s a good hope there that we can do more with bikes and so there’s some good stuff uh we’re having fun with our ell Zed um and parking going up and people dodging the ell said so there when you have these
Things people have to make a change and it’s very interesting to watch so thanks very much for that Steve it’s great to see the transfer I was going to be in Manchester tonight but I missed the train time so I’m staying here fair enough AG otherwise otherwise Manchester
Would have brace ready for your arrival um on on the tra you you probably would have arrived in the Peak at which point the bike on the tram thing I don’t think it’s quite loud but anyway um brilliant thanks AG Amy over to you um yeah two things one is the
Consultation in sui on their draft Vision zero strategy and what’s interesting about that consultation is you can see everybody else’s responses so I put the link in to find it there it closes uh just on 24th so please do respond if you walk or ride there and
Then the other good news is from London where the London assembly police and crime committee has published their report on on the serious injury Collision investigation and we thought we are worried when they rushed it out we thought but it’s a really good report very strong talks about reviewing
Training quality assurance also um calling for an action plan and so important it talks about reviewing no further action uh decisions that that’s fantastic we also talk about introducing a survey um but that won’t be for next year so the campaign groups are going to try and introduce a survey and we’ll be
Reporting back more on that thank you thanks Amy that’s brilliant to hear brilliant round up okay and next got Brendan you’ve got your hand up uh yes hi um a couple of things I’m afraid I wasn’t here the last couple of weeks so I don’t know did someone talk
About what’s happening in Edinburgh re the city’s uh uh announced plans for major change in the last week or two I don’t I’m seeing BL blank faces unless come to David David I’ll come to you in just a moment on that because I can see your
Finger up but uh Brendan assume that we don’t now the council has uh produced uh I think it’s 600 pages of analysis on uh transport across the city center an announced kind of very dramatic plans really to chase Harris and Amsterdam uh which if delivered will be magnificent
There was a spokes the local cycling Lobby group meeting uh with um the transport chair from the council and Laura Laker um and basically they were all singing its praises and it’s going to start uh I think this summer with the temporary closure of the cowgate which
If you know if you know Edinburgh it’s a narrow low down street that’s very very busy uh and if that succeeds it will not be reopened again and uh we’re we’re heading for potentially um most of the Oldtown uh Edinburgh Oldtown being closed to through traffic so cars will
Still be allowed but it’s it’s a really really big deal uh locally certainly but also possibly nationally given Edinburgh is the second most visited uh city in in Britain part of that plan though was about what they’re going to do with the second or the new tram Line North South
Tram line uh and there’s a major local controversy about uh the proposal which was at first that the line would go along uh the track of a former uh Railway which is currently one of the U best loved and used um uh active travel corridors uh there’s been uproar about that although the
Cycling Lobby is quite divided because some say um that you could run a cycle track alongside the tram there uh and others are saying that uh the tram ought to take space exclusively from cars and leave that beautiful natural Corridor in place so um there’s um a public meeting
About that uh there’s a consultation on open at the moment and a public meeting in the Edinburgh Festival of cycling late May early June uh about that very issue it’s called the roseburn cycle path and the the roseburn route and there’s a so the council has basically
Backed off a bit and and said that they um will now put in the consultation two equal Alternatives one of which is wholly on road uh but it’s it’s it’s interesting how it’s divided cyclists basically that’s number one uh number two those of you who keep a sharp eye on
The news may have seen on Saturday that a beer bike was seized and in leth walk um you know a Transit van sized uh bicycle with 10 people on it uh put run by a company which operates in numerous other UK cities and uh Europe
And the guy who founded it has come over from North America uh on an all you can drink basis so you’ve got one sober driver and 10 drunks and it’s the police have seized the vehicle and it was all over the newspapers here uh but what’s interesting really is they’ve not said
Why and there are you know at least 10 different possible reasons that I and others have thought of you know there’s quite a interesting debate going on but I have just suggested uh an hour ago and got accepted uh with the um guy who runs the Edinburgh Festival of cycling that
We hold a debate about that because it’s it’s it’s particularly interesting because there’s a lot of the legal fringes of what is a bicycle and what is allowable that haven’t ever been tested there are no precedence how wide can it be you know how long can it be um uh how
How many passengers can it have what weight can it be and and so on and so on so um it’s it’s going to be extremely legally interesting the police if you go by the records of other traffic offenses May hold on to this 10,000 bike for a
Year which won’t please the owners of it uh but it’s something to watch I think uh and we’re hoping that this debate will be streamed as well for precedence as to what will be allowed in other cities around the country because last sentence from me um it seems that if we
Want uh cities which move heavily towards active travel and cycling there is no alternative but to allow bigger larger pedal powerered Vehicles so what are the limits on that and I for one would really really like to know thank you brilliant thanks Brendan um wow the one short update lots to think about
That I’m I’m having struggled struggling to move on particularly from beer bikes I think I’m wondering whether we need a special active travel Cafe session on beer bikes just to really unpack all the questions that throws up really exciting though um just jump in there this this
Suggestion of a debate or an event has just been made we could make them one and the same thing yeah so let’s talk about brilliant let’s let let’s definitely talk about that that’s fascinating David do you want to jump in before I go to so just to say that this time last week
Last Tuesday we had the inaugural parliamentary walk which um which we’ve organized through the appg and I’d had a chat about a year ago with rose Cadbury who said we have this annual cycle ride but why not have an annual walk to show off the sort of best and worst of the
Walking environment so despite the pouring rain we had a great crowd uh we had five MPS about five peers will Norman Adam tranter um the main active travel uh cabinet members Paul deberg Rosena chowri Adam Harrison in the area and walked from waterl where Rosena chowri told us about the great plans for
Improving the environment of the station went on to the Strand Piaza where we saw this fabulous new space that really is a model for where everybody could be you know pedestrianized took out traffic from a major road um without any impact really on on on traffic movement went through the pedestrianized um Covent
Garden which has really done so much to increase footfall income and ended up at the crown estate offices where they and Westminster told us about their vision for Greening and pedestrianized larger parts of Regent Street so it’s really successful and it really showed that how important walking is as part of
Of active travel and what you can do to improve The Pedestrian environment and get people walking so we’re looking forward to something uh even bigger and better next year David that’s wonderful also gives us a glimmer of hope enlightened thinking in Westminster yeah well the new Council
Has to be you know Paul De molenberg and the labor Council obviously feel cautious and they’re starting from L low base than Camden Oris lington um but they are trying to get there obviously Paul De molenberg is is an enthusiastic pedestrian and let’s hope we can we’re hoping that they’ll start
Taking action on St Martin’s Lane soon so they have got schemes in progress and let’s just hope they’re sort of brave enough to carry forward thanks David brilliant stuff okay um H I’m going to come to you very briefly because you’ve already had a session a slot I’m
Assuming it’s response to the breaking news around stolen beer bikes H you there yeah oh buer yeah I I on the no it’s classic H technical moment there I’ll come back to you in a second H um is it a a Kelly is that for Adam Adrian sorry keelly I did hear your
Request earlier to I can’t work out how to change my name on Zoom I don’t know where the config is for that apologies yeah I’m I’m over in Wiltshire but I sit on the border with bath and Northeast Somerset um just small piece of news to
Do that and my wife has organized a playing out event at freshford school in Bath North East Somerset um on Friday anyone who’s in that area it’d be great to have your support um and then couple of slightly smaller news points on that route uh that I normally Traverse between wilter
And freshford there is a road Clos I mentioned I think a week or two ago um going on for five months which is fantastic essentially created a five Monon low trffic neighborhood I’m trying to use that to um create a permanent one and having a lot of difficulties with um
Getting the road classification changed C Road I’ve raised that with the council um not getting anywhere with that but I’d love to know anyone’s attempts at um changing Road classifications preferably down to get low traffic neighborhoods um and then a slightly even smaller piece of news I visited Cambridge for the
First time on my on a bike over the weekend to actually purchase a triplet tandem um and I was massively impressed by the cycle infrastruct very jealous by the cycle infrastructure in Cambridge um so qos to everyone at cam cycle and Co and and neighboring organizations who’ve
Been involved with that I was really impressed with it but I did have some problems even in wonderful Cambridge with barriers on particularly the guided busway and some of the other paths which are just not designed for a triplet uh and really sympathize with people on um bigger bikes particularly you know
People who are disabled potentially um trying to get through some of those barriers so um something to to improve on for the future fabulous thanks for that and Kudos on the uh tricycle trip the triplet tricycle whatever it is amazing yeah my children I I got um a GSD cargo
Bike my two boys have almost outgrown that it’s constant fighting on the back so um triplet is the next forward good work okay I’m gonna attempt to go back to H in a second quick explainer though for anybody wants to know when you see your little picture on Zoom at the top
Left top right there are three dots and if you click on there on the your picture on Zoom three dots click on there you can rename yourself easy as that um right H I think you put your hand in the air as if you’d won a technical battle and we’re all hoping
That you have yeah well I’m working off the Android so it’s it’s quite difficult um on licensing and beer bikes uh in Scotland the rose Scotland a we can actually we treated bike hire as Street trading and require them to have a license and so beer bikes commercial use
Of bikes on the road and such like can be treated as Street trading under Section 97 of the road Scotland act so in Scotland we have nice laws so we can do that we might treat it as a large motorc car with more than eight seats as
Well and uh treat it as the public passenger vehicles act licensing um it doesn’t specify what needs to power your bus and um some buses are actually powered by steam so we got around that one um just another one on the Cambridge busway it’s it’s still been closed for 2
Years after the cyclist was killed by a 56 m hour bus because there’s no separation between the cycle way and the 56 mph bus lanes and somebody clipped the curb and fell in front of a bus um I don’t know what progress is on that but
It’s still closed I think and I think we must be due a health and safety executive report on this so h i I was using that over the weekend so it definitely was open but it was a thought that crossed my mind those buses do go fast along there and you’re right
There’s no separation great um I’m conscious of time and we’ve got Mark to come um Ramy High wom but thank you very much everybody does anybody before we move on uh and get Mar present does anybody want to do a quick explainer about the announcement on Sunday um that I think
Was quite significant anybody want to do a quick yeah Adrian did you put your hand up I thought I thought I saw you volunteer there come on in I I can I can do something on the 20 miles now bit um I I’ll I’ll refrain from doing on on the
Ltn side um and the there a couple of really important things to remember one is that we are in in an election year so everything that is done between now and the election is about getting votes out it’s nothing to do with with what’s right or wrong the second thing to
Notice about the 20 M hour guidance is that it is guidance as implied by the name it is not the law the law has not changed um and in particular um in paragraph 33 there is a statement that local authorities must consider fully consider the needs of vulnerable Road
Users everything else apart from that paragraph is subservient to that so all the there there are a few bits of a few bits of nonsense in there um there’s a two or three or maybe four assertions uh which are made without any evidence at all uh for example they say
That Journey times will be longer but they don’t don’t bring any evidence about that and and we know from practical experience the journey times are hardly ever long with 20 M an hour they also say that uh there is more pollution with 20 miles an hour and we
Know that is wrong so there are one or two uh interesting things there are some there are some useful clarifications it says very clearly uh the law is the law and local authorities got to comply with it um and this is guidance only we think
Really this is this is a there’s a lot smok and mirrors in here and we don’t really see anything changing for those local authorities that want to continue to implement 20 miles an hour and make their make their places better places to be then they’ll continue to do that
Those who those local authorities that don’t want to do that well they they won’t do it anyway so I I we don’t really see much much changing here I’m very happy to answer any particular any specific questions that that on it though no that’s perfect Adan that’s
Really good quick explainer um and I think you’re absolutely spot on in that it’s electioneering uh pure and simple what’s really fascinating now is there’s polls already emerging showing how frustrated people are with the talk of this stretching on until November or even January and losing the will to live
If we have another six months of this nonsense um but thank you very much I am going to move us on um uh and do please remember active travel Cafe is a bipartisan non-party political environment but yes our cabinet is a load of drunks driven by one Ser driver
Actually not that’s over um I’m going to move us on Mark ranty highw are you ready to present to us around the user experience I am let me sh and see how we go and obviously please do explain what you’ve done to yourself right so let me just get set up
Here so yeah I’ll just pull a thing out of uh my industry um one of contractor leads on um a meeting quite often they have what’s called a safety moment and for me like Denzel there I mess with the Shelf at the weekend um put one up for a
Friend then immediately forgot I’d put it up and hit my head on it so there you go and that’s why I’ve got a plaster there you may laugh as much as you like it’s quite funny so tonight slightly extended version we’re going to look at user
Experience um what say before I go into this a thank you to Ross Atkin I don’t know if he’s managed to get on tonight but we’ve been talking behind the scenes about a couple bits and pieces on this um this is quite a new area for me so
I’m by no means at all an expert or specialist um so you’re learning with me as we go along so let’s see where we get to um let’s start the Wikipedia definition which I will read out this time the user experience is how a user interacts with and experiences a product
System or service includes person’s perceptions of utility ease of use and efficiency uh probably quite a lot in there to um absorb but we’ll move on and hopefully we can pick a bit of this up as we go through it so I did uh when I Trail this on
Social media tell you that I was going to now show you something that you’re never going to unsee and this is it so here are um some photos of doors um my office to be exact and what you have here is two sides of the same door and
What we can see on both sides of the same door it’s exactly the same handle keep that in your head here is two sides of another door um to my kitchen in the office um we have two different things going here so on the left there is a definite handle
And on the right there is a push plate and that’s quite important so we’re going to talk about the Norman door um so what we’re saying here is basically where we get a door a door wrong um Professor Don Norman um there’s his book on the right hand side I
Probably been reading it or trying to read it for about eight months it’s very very dense um but he’s talking about human Center design essentially so let’s go back a minute um so just just get into your head so here’s a door same handle on both sides here’s a door
Handle on one side push play on the other side um if your is giving out the wrong usability signals we call it a normal door how can people get doors wrong but they do at the bottom there um there is URL to really really good video which
Sums this up which if you get a second just scribble that down um otherwise I’ll put that on Twitter after um the session um it’s about five minutes long well worth a look so my um secure door into the office here is a noral door um and the
Reason it’s a normal door is if you go up to this and you want to open it the handle tells you to pull as simple as that um pulling that door from one of those sides um the one on the left it will not open because you actually have to push this particular
Door um so here is a door with good discoverability and discoverability is as you approach the thing that you you’re going to use in some way um you kind of already understand how it’s going to uh be used so on the left that means pull on the right that means
Push um it’s the kind of thing that we probably pick up at a very early age on how stuff works more generally um doesn’t really matter what’s happening on the left there in terms of the shape of the handle and the rest of that um if
You pull that handle you know the door’s going to open it gets more complicated if your handle is um horizontal and it’s across the entire width of the door because you don’t really know which way the hinges are um there is a bar in I
Think it was in the ha um who have on purpose put the handles and things all the way wrong way around because it gives a bom and a laugh so there you go Norman doors that’s now going to stick with you so why we why we’re thinking of
Discoverability um let’s look at a couple of Hobs here these are just random off off the internet being sold at the moment um so the problem is if you go to switch on a hob uh and I can’t say any hands here so you’ll have to kind of think think among
Yourself and maybe put it in the chat how many people would go to Hob and think oh hang on minute now which now how did this work um one on the left is probably slightly better because you got little twist knobs there but you’re going to have to go in there close and
Look at the little tiny pictures to work out which knob turns which um hob on um maybe it’s logically placed down the right hand side but it’s you know it’s not particularly discoverable the one on the right hand side um is potentially worse to some extent because
You got the four little buttons down the bottom here then you’ve got a plus and minus uh to control the heat so any Jam makers um in the room will have massive problems with this particular one because you can’t just get the heat up and down finally and quickly you’re
Probably going to want to use one on the left once you’ve learned which which knob to twist there discoverability so if we look at something with good discovery ability we should be able to understand quickly um what it does how the operations work um two sides to this coin the second side
Is when we actually use the thing we should be getting some feedback to to to realize or understand that the thing is working as we expected I could not find the image on the right anywhere um I even tried AI to generate this I’ve had to doctor it I’ve put the four little
Twist knobs at the bottom there in the same pattern as the Hobs appearer in front of us that is something which has good discoverability because we can go up to it we realize well actually the top left one runs the top left hob and we know if we turn it to the right
Generally speaking um we’ve we’ve learned this that that one’s going to get hotter and if you turn it right to the right it’s going to get hottest so there’s our feedback we’re turning the knob and the um the hob is going to Glow heat up whatever it
Does um couple other Concepts just to bring in a little bit harder to um to work with uh but we’ll talk about the concept of aordance and again back to Don Norman affordances represent the possibilities in the world for how the agent that’s a person animal machine whatever can interact with something um
Quite interesting that he picked machine back in the day when he wrote this definition because that’s pretty much before um we had Ai and and some of the automation we’ve got now so he was kind of predicting what might happen in the future but essentially as you walk up to
A thing to go and use it as you’re getting there um the idea of an affordance is you kind of start to understand how this thing’s going to work so unlike Mr Don and Mr George in the photo um as you approach a sofa you’re pretty sure that you’re going to
Go and sit on it or you lie on it because of its shape and how it it’s comfy all the rest of it you probably don’t go and Lean Forward on a Thursday um to watch TV as they did uh the Young younger viewers may not know who those
Two are so look up the Scottish TV comedy absolutely and maybe you’ll find Mr Don and Mr George we also have signifiers um again this is getting a little bit more um complex here so again back to Don Norman a affordances determine what actions are
Possible so we see a chair well you can sit on you can lay on it you can lean across it on a Thursday the signify something that communic where the action should take place um and he says we need both so for example you go up to your computer um get the
Mouse and you can see the little hand or the arrow on the screen so the mouse is your affordance the signifier is the little hand or or um arrow pointing at stuff telling that stuff’s going to happen um and there’s h on the right hand side there trying to get his it to
Work sorry H um so yeah the last two are a little bit more complex and it’s kind of this is where um my learning has got to so far um quite hard to keep in your mind um because it can come across as a bit
Abstract so can we apply some of this to streets let’s see so here’s um The Humble push button um maybe the push button itself is the affordance um the signifying potentially is having a little notice that tells you how to use it but telling somebody how to use something maybe is less intuitive
Is a bit more over the top so uh I’m not quite sure how well this translates but you know let’s go with and see where we get to um discoverability and feedback are far easier I think uh in terms of concept and certainly the application to streets I think is easier for most
People to grasp including me so with the push button um couple of on Discovery the fact that um it’s a recognizable shape um at Le at least in the UK um that particular arrangement I imagine most people understand what it is and what it’s for um the fact it’s yellow
Probably helps a little bit from the side there um so we can discover where we have to go and push the button um I’d also say the tactile paving is important because there’s many users that can’t see um or have difficulty seeing the push button so the tactile paving and if
It’s laid correctly in the correct arrangement will direct people to the the push button position so two things there giveing you discoverability on the right hand side we’re talking about feedback so you press a button it lights up there’s your immediate feedback you know the signals have got you programmed
In um for your Greenman and then in the inser Box you’ve got the twisty tactile cone that is underneath the push button unit um now that gives you some feedback as a vision impaired user when it’s actually safe to cross and the green man is is showing so slightly different on that feedback
Because that doesn’t come into play um until you actually get the green man but you know two two sides of the same thing here really so we’ve got the discoverability we’re finding the thing in the street that um we need to use somehow or negotiate and we get some pretty immediate feedback there
Um now this is probably even more complex so zebra Crossings I would say generally speaking where either it’s this nice one all shiny in the city of London or a faded one in a supermarket um without bleach beacons or whatnot it’s still a pretty discoverable thing
Now we have to learn these things as children perhaps but the zebra Crossing is a thing that people recognize um that there’s studies and data that back that up so in terms of discoverability you look on the street you see a zebra Crossing okay fine that’s that’s
Probably a good place to cross feedback is a bit more difficult because you don’t get anything into terms of something lighting up or somebody telling you to start crossing the feedback you’re getting here probably is by virtue of drivers hopefully stopping to let you cross even though technically
Speaking you should have your foot in the Crossing on the rest of that um there’ll be some people that that can’t see or sense the traffic so well um and the feedback they get is a lot more difficult which potentially is why um there will be some people who prefer
Push buttons and signals and everything else um the f and signifier side of things that’s getting really difficult because um kind of the affordance is is not seen here it’s the fact that Crossing is there to it’s meant to stop drivers uh give that option to cross uh
Signifies even more difficult here so we’ve got this Theory which applies very nicely to computers and phones and and those products maybe a bit more difficult to apply to streets or maybe I just haven’t been reading enough and and trying to work it out in my head here what it is
So um here’s a here’s a uh bus gate I think discoverability is fairly easy because if you’re driving up there you’re going to see the no entry signs um again no entry signs are a learned thing um but if you see them in any country in the world you probably
Understand what nry meets unless you’re um in Ireland which has um uh kind of where we have band turns the Irish have a band ahead so we do have little differences here and there the affordances and signifier is again it’s probably a bit more um esoteric with
This one but I thrown those in as a question to think about in terms of your feedback on this particular um bus gate if if you decide not to obey the signs you got some pretty hefty feedback there um you’re probably not going to do it
Again if we go to something um which is a enforced in a slightly different way um again discoverability it’s very bright it’s very obvious um that this is a bus gate we’ll come to people understanding signs in a second but again pretty discoverable in the street uh but maybe your feedback comes
A lot later on this one um when you get to find through the post for ignoring it so the flying motorbike sign uh the subject of debate Forever on Twitter and other social media um people should understand the sign it’s been in the big book of Sciences 1964 uh people should understand it
Through doing the driving test and reading the book of science everything else people keep getting it wrong there’s Market re research to show that people don’t understand it lots of other signs which are Banning things have a line through it like a band left turn or
Band right turn or band U-turn there’s a quite a compelling argument that this should have a line through it but a greater distance maybe it’s harder to pick out um the rest of the sign face um that’s a debate which I’m probably not get into too much detail here suffice to
Say if we’ve got a layout that people continually get wrong there might actually be something wrong with their design and really here you can sit back in your chair and say well that’s fine we’re just going to tax poor drivers but if what we’re trying to provide here is
Is a method of trying to have um a quiet street Beyond actually we don’t want people getting fined um we don’t want anybody going there at all um um so here’s a really nice layout down in Lambeth in South London it’s a route where they’ve had to keep access
Open for emergency vehicles um they’ve decided here not to put in bards that are removable for that purpose so the signs there on the left hand side to actually reinforce the law it’s a legal requirement to have that particular sign but through design they’ve tried to discourage it as as being um through
Road so in order to drive through here I’m I’m sure people give it a go but the much harder to say that they didn’t understand the sign or they were confused because you have to drive over what looks like a pavement um you have to weave your way past little planted
Gardens here um to get Beyond there so what the designers have tried to do here is use design to reinforce use and the behavior in the street and the signs only there’s a secondary thing to because it’s a legal requirement to have the sign um on this on the
Site um so taking this a step further and again this this is still me learning um the subject a little bit we talk about user experience but we can also call that human Center design and and here’s a four stage uh model here so we can start by observing what’s happening
In the street um from what we observe we can generate some ideas on how we can solve or enhance what we’re seeing and from that we can then develop some prototypes and put them in the street maybe to test them um and as we’re testing we can go through this whole
Cycle again and we can tweak and improve and change things as as we go along might be on an individual project or we might take might take that learning and apply it to um a different situation so let’s look at a little example of that four stage model here so
Here’s some observation um traffic Loops in the street measuring traffic flow in a particular location and um yeah not a massively busy street but in terms of um something like local transport one of 20 where you’re looking at um cycle design um at about 2,000 Vehicles a day that’s kind
Of the upper limit where people are happy to mix the traffic um on 21 hour streets for example so we’ve got some flows here we’ve got OG V1 that’s and PSV that’s just lorries and buses um got some Peak flows here we’ve got speed 29 miles now Okay so we’ we’ve
Done some observation in terms of the traffic conditions so we have a fair idea of what’s going on so we can then go and generate some ideas this particular one um well okay look we we’ve got quite a lot of traffic coming through this residential street um let’s actually stop that through
Traffic um car cycles and pedestrians through of course so of generated an idea so here’s a prototype um this example sorry for the blurring but that was best photo I had um we’ve dropped some big concrete blocks in the road here we’ve stuck a Ballard in the middle
To stop people driving through the middle that can be removed for emergency access but you know we haven’t spent a lot of money on this we we’re trying it out seeing what happens so we’re into the testing phase um we’ve now got the after traffic survey done and we’ve got huge drop in
Flow through through uh through this particular Road not surprisingly because we’ve stopped it here so really the only people getting this far um those that have to be there um yeah massive reductions on Peak flow as well and actually we’ve achieved um quite a good speed reduction for not actually doing
Very much at all so that’s the testing phase um in this particular example um we came back and actually put in the permanent materials here but in fact the permanent materials in in this particular scheme are in a slightly different place so actually some of that test is getting feedback from the public
Um and we made some adjustments to the project in its final um layout so that’s where we’ve spent the money when fairly sure we’re happy with um what the final scheme should look like so trying to pull some of this together and I haven’t gone into
Affordances um uh this bit I’ve kept it about the this discovering the feedback here we’re looking at self-explaining streets so can we use the US experience ideas and human Center design to design better streets and this really for me is about having layouts which are discoverable so as we’re as we’re going
Through the street doesn’t matter if we’re walking Wheeling cycling driving whatever we don’t really need to have to think about what’s expected of us so we don’t have to stop and study a sign to understand what we should do um and going forward we should automatically understand um how the street operates
And if we can get some feedback as we’re using the streets and it’s it’s com feedback so we’re not going to crash into something um the other side of a bus gate um we keep that comfortable feedback um that helps reinforce that we’re we’re proceeding um as we should
Um and yeah if it gets a bit uncomfortable without damaging vehicles um that’ll help help with the feedback and uh yeah re-educate people how they should perhaps use those spaces so I’m going to move to a little bit research here which um is quite interesting definitely worth reading so
University of West of England has been doing a fair bit of research actually on on side roads and how people use them and how they operate um this particular um part of this work by flower science and parking looked at behavior um where people walking and cycling over side
Roads versus driver Behavior again link there um for those who want to go and read the paper it’s quite exessive definitely worth going to have a look um so what this particular paper does it looks again more Concepts coming in here um but they looked at two types of Side Road
Treatments so here is an example of Mark’s priority um giveways here to a shed Ed path going across the entrance here so you can see giveway signs um in the right places so drives give way to people walking a cycl um so as we go along here can we
Discover what’s expected of us yes probably because um at least if we’re driving we should know what those triangles um big triangles mean and what the dotted lines mean do we get some feedback from this um that’s a bit tougher maybe if we’re going through there a bit quicker we’re
Not giving away properly we’ll encounter that speed hump um a bit of feedback there if if you’re going there too quick and the guy cycling across and he ances an argument you might get some very immediate feedback from him less less difficult to control though um here’s another example of marked priority I
Would say this is probably a lot more obvious um here uh with the parallels over Crossing um again can we discover what’s expected of us and what feedback do we get so from the Walking a cycling point of view we know this is a place that we’ve
Got priority over traffic to cross um in theory that should happen and the feedback we get should be that people are actually stopping again easier said than done in theory um but if we can design these streets be as obvious as possible um if we can make sure that the
Dri’s Turning from that uh Road there is nice and tight and and all that kind of thing uh then hopefully they will discover what’s expected of them um then so that’s that’s Mark’s priority they also looked at design priority and here we are our favorite thing here continuous treatment this is
Coventry um and the thing here is if we go to Discovery the layout that we get is the changing level we’ve got the materials in in the ramp curb units there we’ve got the red hash felt going across from a driving point of view I would say from
A Discovery Point of View as a somebody walking Wheeling or cycling it may be less obvious because that priority hasn’t carried on through with you know the footway curb running through and the dotted lines of the cycle track running through so there’s a bit of debate there
About um the the discovery phase but probably from the driver it’s going to at least make you slow down and U encounter the space a bit more differently feedback again as as for Mark priority it’s really the interactions between the people um using that Crossing
There so in the work um that UWE did so um they’re looking at yielding so if you’re Crossing somewhere where um as a as a pedestrian or cyclist you meant to have priority you shouldn’t have to yield to drivers turning in that’s kind of what they’re looking at so where you
Had marked priority Junctions uh the people crossing did not have to yield to drivers um almost three quarters of occasions which is pretty high um design priority Junction this goes up to nearly 90% And that’s compared with a control site where it’s just standard um Side Road where generally speaking drivers would
Probably think they’ve got priority not withstanding the highway code um the control SES that proportion was much less below 50% um they did do some modeling of of that and it’s it gets a little bit more complex on how they um did that but essentially when they modeled design
Priority versus Mark priority um they actually found that the parallel Crossing might well be the preferred treatment potentially because it’s um uh really really obvious with the stripes and everything else uh followed by Design priority followed by marked priority without Z Crossing and that’s that first example I gave of the giveway
Triangles so it’s very interesting how people see the road L ahead um and based on what they see decide how they should behave so I shall leave you with um a Norman door uh happy to answer questions but as I say this is not my subject so
Maybe this will turn into more of a debate thank you very much Steve Mark that was excellent really really good um I think we hit at one point we hit Peak active travel Cafe there where you were showing us sourcy infrastructure and Kathy put in the chat nice
Curs is uh there we are see doesn’t get better than that doesn’t get better than that that’s a CH day early evening well spent um right we’ve had quite a few questions in the chat what I might do um is just flag a couple of them Mark and
Then if people want to jump in and ask their question directly because we had um first of all very straightforward one from Andy Wilshire who was with us speaking earlier what classification with Road streets with the concrete blocks bards at the testing stage for an ltn technical question at what stage was
It yeah uh that was the start of an experimental traffic order so we literally had a lawyer that dropped the blocks on um traffic orders to back us up and that was it we were away BR there you go easy and dead easy so um I’m
Going to ask Ruth you had two questions in the chat did you want to come in yourself and ask them because they’re quite different ones one about road safety and Road Works another one about the Netherlands okay thank you hi Mark thanks very interesting as usual um Road
Safety so we’ve got loads of Road Works going on around uh Richmond especially where they have put nice new cycle Lanes in and they rebuilding them even though they’re brand new and um and to get past them they’ve put no safe space to get past um so is there any mandatory thing
That Council should be doing to make cycling safe when there are Road Works number one and the other one was uh in the Netherlands they only have signs for where you can’t park no where you can park not where you can’t do we have any chance of getting to that okay so with
The first one yes there is the code of practice for Road and Street Works which local Authority contract local authorities should be following and utility companies should be following um and that goes into lots of detail on how you make space for walking and cycling
It’s a bit out of date because there is some copout Clauses in there if it gets too difficult for them but uniquely in London there is also a separate document that tfl produced which goes into a bit more detail um that’s kind of mandatory on roads at tfl look after gets more
Difficult with the burrowers but essentially they’ve still got responsibility to make sure that people are kept safe during Works um the code of practice itself there was a really good question in the chat right at the beginning about the fact that it’s a criminal offense not to comply with it
And who might enforce that um but that tends to be local authorities so if it’s local Authority Works they’re playing policemen to their own works but that that’s a political argument at the end of the day um on the second point I have no idea if any politicians are thinking
Of going to that approach but we can do that so we can use restricted parking zones um which means we can designate an entire area and we can say and within this entire area essentially it’s w lines without paints we still have some signs and you can only Park in Mar Bays
So we can do something approximately Dutch just that we we we don’t always bother I’ve done quite a few that work well thanks Mark and so AG before I come to you I’m just going to go to Matt Wardman because Matt you wanted you asked you wanted to ask a quiet question
Which is a lovely way of getting noticed in the chat so Matt did you want to come in it’s quieter than I expected that question no should I read it out so um Mark the question that Matt had was about I’m just scrolling through Elizabeth my list of questions you given
Me um was about uh strange thing um an advertising board set halfway across a shared cycle walking Pavement in Sheffield and how could that possibly be allowed and what’s the law on there if somebody just Chuck something up oh that’s good question it so at the basic level um
People should not be putting anything on the highway um so in theory there’s there’s enforcement action that can be taken about that the problem is that um you can license things on the highway and lots of local authorities have seen income and so what they’ve done essentially is brought in a policy of
Licensing these things um at one end of the scale I believe it’s all to be true Edinburgh do not allow them at all that’s their policy um at the other end of a scale there are councils that that license all sorts of things for income um so if you’re going
To do it properly you should have a policy in place um if something’s put out and it’s not in accordance with that policy then obviously that can be forced against but also and it goes for things perhaps a bit beyond um advertising bards you get into tables and chairs and other things
Um you get into the planning side of things where people need planning consent to have these things out in the first place uh but for abls the question to go and ask of your local counsil is um what is your policy for them um if they haven’t got a policy they really
Should be taking enforcement action and getting shot of them if they have got a policy it’s making sure those things are deployed in accordance with that policy brilant thanks Mark and I now know Matt couldn’t jump in because quiet meant he doesn’t have a microphone that works so
There you go fair enough and the in fact I found the the ugliness that uh in fact I can share it I just share what uh can everybody see that on Twitter yeah oh one of these ones that’s even one those ones so that’s even worse because yeah so that would
Be an advertising company or a phone company putting those in um so for those to go in they they do require planning consent um but it’s it’s a slightly different class of planning consent and it’s often quite difficult for local authorities to resist them um so if your local Authority one of those
Has been prepare proposed where you haven’t got a footway space or if it’s on a shared path um really the planning officers in conjunction hopefully the high officers should be objecting to those and then the planning Authority um except essentially refusing planning consent for those um the advertising
Industry is well funded has lots of money lots of power so they routinely um appeal so if you can pin those back to local policy whether it’s active travel policy within planning terms or or immediately or other things um that’s what they should do the problem is now
It’s in you’re pretty much um G to fail to get those removed again because they’re very very lucrative I used to work with planners we routinely rejected them in that kind of position but yeah craziness um okay I’m going to come to Cameron in just a second because he’s got probably our one
Of our final questions but H you’ve had your hand up very p patiently did you want to come in on this I can see he’s pushing buttons he may appear or not he needs to pick up his mouth and talk to it human Center design in the
World no you there you’re mut again yeah have I got me now yes Lou c um yeah basically picking up on ranty there is quite often our Council has a blanket permission for bus shelters and we actually had a bus shelter put in where you couldn’t get between the bus shelter
And the wall um on the footway so that’s where these things go in um and we have an instance in oldgate where Andrea casalotti U there was a fatality where person stepped out in front of a bus because the bus driver didn’t see them they didn’t see the bus coming um they
Thought the lights were red to go up Commercial Street so um these things are lethal um and they’ve got a blanket permission to put them in um the other one I was going to ask Mark about bards versus uh car traps there is nice video
Of a car I think it’s in Cambridge where the driver attempts to go along the busway and there is a car trap and he punctures all his tires by driving into the car trap what do you think of those the drop roads oh the problem with all this is we we
Probably don’t want people getting in there in the first place because if they do get in there into a trap then it’s going to hold everybody up until they can actually get the vehicle recovered um I think Cambridge is interesting because there’s a couple of locations
Where despite lots and lots and lots of signs people continually getting it wrong um I think there’s one up near El end where um there’s a couple of accesses to private properties so they have to keep some sort of Road open um but people keep disobeying the
Science that’s a problem if you keep getting these things going wrong can you go back and look at the design and try and design that problem out in the first place um otherwise what you’ve got to do potentially is rising ballards or barriers which then come with a maintenance liability um traps are
Passive they sit there do nothing until somebody crashes into one so yeah I guess they’re cheap from that point of view thanks Mark and Cameron did you want to come in and ask your question yourself I I’m happy to read it out for you but if want to jump in I thought you
Point about agile software development and iterative design is quite interesting this yeah can you hear me um so yeah I just saying it’s very similar to um uh Agile development in in software design where you’re you’re developing very close with the in close conjunction with the user and then
You’re you’re releasing a minimum valuable product on an iterative basis getting feedback improving it and so on um and I I guess like uh for in the civil engineering environment there’s not that many parallels where you can do that apart from um with like um Etro and
And ltns and so on um and just I’m just thinking it’s it’s absolutely essential really that can we can still continue to do that that type of thing but with the DFT you know having potential uh additional requirements to get local buying and so on you know what what what
How would you advise local authorities to um ensure they get buying and still be able to um to trial um Solutions you know is is is a new a different process required you know to sort of like outline up front and say you know that we’re we’re yeah anyway I’ll let
You I’ll let you I think well I think I think I think with the cave yet that I haven’t bothered to read the latest Dil that’s come out from them um because yeah Life’s Too Short um lots of people have read it and lots of people are
Saying look all they’re doing is is kind of um reupping the kind of things that good local authorities do anyway so let’s not worry about it too much um until and unless they change the regulations um around how you deploy experiments we’re still free to go and
Do them um and experiments have a six- month objection period written into the law which is your feedback and and trying to get the local buying and the rest of it so I would say and with the caveat that yeah that who knows what they’re going to do in the next next
Week or whatever um yeah why not do experiments because that’s a really good way of getting that immediate feedback um you can tweak things as you go and everything else as it says I I don’t think that should necessarily change it’s probably just going to put um the
Waivers off from from doing that kind of thing I think the difference you’ve got between say software design or product design which things are agile can move quickly is Street stuff is is is slower um we can deploy things as we did in covid sub yeah again subject to the the
Legal caveats there we can go and try stuff out we should try stuff out because if you wanted to go and put in um I know big Plaza in the middle of some some town maybe spending a bit of money doing the experiment doing some engagement um getting feedback and
Buying and everything else is better than spending two three4 million pounds complete repaving the area so it’s definitely got its place I think it necessarily is a lot more clunky um we can probably go and try stuff in in quieter less cont controversial places get the learning
From that then deploy it on a slightly larger more complex scheme so there’s definitely stuff we can learn from the more agile Industries it’s just we are H we are hamstrung to some extent with the law but also the LW is there to protect people’s right of access premises and
Loading and other things so there is there is a reason for that but yeah it’s a it’s a good parallel to draw brilliant thanks Mark really good analogy now I can’t see any more hands up the only thing that occurred to me Mark through all of that is how you at
Some points talking about iterative designs or using signage systems from the 1960s coupled with things that we’re just experimenting with um and in some ways I did wonder whether in your heart of hearts would you like to be able to start the whole thing from scratch I think oh it’s it’s an
Interesting question so actually if if we were looking at filters that’s that’s that’s the best example um and this is probably why I constantly say let’s only put camera enforced filters in were absolutely necessary by exception because if we put ballards in then um you get immediate feedback as as
A user so if you’re a driver you see the Ballard you know you can’t get through you don’t have to have a sign you don’t have to have any explanation whatsoever um so if we go back to um what I was saying um so the usability signal going
Right back to the early slide usability signals um of the filter is okay look you’ve got the Ballard there you kind of understand how you use that thing um the discoverability is there you can see a ball in front of you the feedback is immediate you can’t pass in a car
So I think it’s I think it’s kind of fine to talk about yeah maybe we need a slightly different sign um there will be people that come back with a new market tested sign that still don’t understand it and I think this is a pro problem trying to rely on
Traffic signs is almost a failure of design in the first place and I’d rather be using traffic signs to reinforce the law because we have to but actually get the design right so that Lamberth example I gave where it’s yeah I probably shouldn’t be driving through there that’s far better than
Just putting a couple of signs up by the side of Roads even the bus Gates bright red painted on the ground people go through it because they don’t understand what it is so can we use the design to make things really really understandable because as I say with these things what
We’re really after is high compliance especially if it’s a safety critical situation we don’t want people going through there we don’t actually want people on our busways we don’t want people in the filters let’s try and design that out Mark a perfect note upon which end also I think they might look prettier
And more aesthetically pleasing so there you go well I’m going to round us up and send us all on our way to go and have our tea that was an amazing one mark thank you so much excellent news round up as well it sounds like everything exciting appears to be happening in
Scotland who knew um we’re all on a we’re gonna come up Brendon and visit Edinburgh straight away because there’s nothing happening South of the Border frankly um thank you very much to all our speakers thank you to Elizabeth and will for helping out and please do join
Us again next week on active travel Cafe have a lovely evening everybody take care