I left Chapter 2 of Morville’s Ambient Findability with 3 new thoughts in my noggin…

1. People Die From Design

Morville gets pretty serious when she talks about the necessity of simple wayfinding. “People die” four times in a single paragraph when she talks about the consequences of poor design in wayfinding. For example, she explains that a weakly designed fire exit plan may indirectly kill people, by not giving them a clear exit route.
Her point, which she made quite clearly, is that wayfinding (for example, directions) should be designed simply, and attempt to be universal. I can only agree. The designers need to understand that they are creating something for an audience. I think they need to act like they’re building signs for a 6 year old to comprehend. That’s how you make a sign simple, and universal.

2. Words Limits Us

Words, which seem to be quite limitless, limit us. If someone doesn’t have a strong vocabulary, defining something can be tough. Louis CK, great American stand-up comedian, has a whole section from his Hilarious special about how we talk. Basically, he talks about how we limit our descriptions with our words. Like using the word “amazing” to describe a bucket of chicken wings. Next time think about how you’re describing something. It might amaze you what types of things are categorized in your life under one word.

3. Memes Have History

I know for me, memes have a slightly different definition in my book. The Internet introduced “Memes” to me. An Internet meme usually calls out a certain person or subject in a few words. And yes they can be addictive and  funny to read. Meme, described in the text, has a more knowledge-sharing “useful” aspect to it. The reading talks about how one person can learn something and pass it down to another person who passes it down and so on. I just thought bringing up the fact that word definitions are constantly changing could help us understand how language behaves over time. This time, it was through the power of the Internet.