Anyone could make this screen look better. But it takes more than that to make it a good design.

I had an instant, negative reaction to the proposal. Not because of the design itself, which demonstrates a solid grasp of the information cab riders want and the context in which they’re consuming the information, but because the designers understood the design problem all wrong.

If the sole objective of Taxi TV is “providing useful information to riders,” then Antenna’s design is commendable. But that’s not the only–or even the primary–objective of Taxi TV. A 2007 Times article about NYC’s Taxi TV contracts confirms as much: Taxi TV is about advertising, not providing useful information. (Sidenote: WABC’s Taxi TV provides a pinpoint description of NYC taxi passengers, as only a marketer could—“upscale, affluent and captive”.)

It’s unpalatable, but Taxi TV is an advertising platform first and foremost, which means that Antenna’s proposal is a failure. The client—advertisers—would never agree to having their content off by default, hidden behind an “Entertainment” button. That design wouldn’t make it past the first client review (if even that far).

This is a perfect illustration of the tension designers face between providing the end user with the best possible experience and not getting fired by your client for doing so. For Taxi TV, the best user experience is clearly at odds with the business objectives. A good designer reconciles that issue instead of pretending it doesn’t exist.

How I Would Improve Taxi TV

I’ll put my money where my mouth is and offer a better proposal. Here are the design principles I’d follow, ones that I feel would result in a realistic and implementable design for Taxi TV’s interface.

Design to keep the screen on

From the advertisers’ perspective, nothing is worse than what I regularly do: hop in the cab, get instantly annoyed at the screen blaring at me, and immediately hit the OFF button on the screen. Of course, Taxi TV should allow users to turn the system off, but the content and the UI should do all it can to convince users that Taxi TV is worth keeping on. To do this, start the cab ride with a dashboard or overview of the things a passenger can do: see a map, get fare information, or watch TV. Don’t just give the user a choice, show them what they could experience with a small, live updating map like the one Antenna designed, a live (but muted) TV screen, and live updating fare information. Entice passengers to drill down into any of these three options.

Shut up and enjoy the ride

Leave the sound off until the passenger turns it on. This allows ads to be seen while decreasing the chance that a user immediately and instinctively turns the TV off when the ride starts. I would do my best to convince the client that muted ads are better than no ads at all. This could even be a useful design constraint for advertisers: make your ads compelling enough that passengers want to hear them. Or, to take it a step further, the NYC TLC could have structured the entire advertising model so that advertisers only pay for passenger interactions (as opposed to muted impressions).

Don’t do anything unless the user requests it

Taxi TV’s posture should be passive and reactive. Let the passenger approach Taxi TV and provide only what the passenger requests. Ultimately, this will feel like a less annoying experience to the passenger and makes them less likely to form a negative view of Taxi TV with repeated experiences. As a result, you have a passenger audience that is less hardened and more likely to see Taxi TV as a useful resource than an obtrusive annoyance.

One of the doctors behind Hello Health has a really illuminating blog post announcing the service and explaining why something like this hasn’t happened before now.

Who they’re targeting:

Our market is the 47 million people in America without health insurance; the other millions of Americans who are underinsured; and the 40 million Americans over the next four years who will have high deductible health insurance plans.

…If you cannot afford the ridiculously expensive insurance premiums in your local area, we provide the next best thing — your own personal accessible doctor who you can communicate with however you’d like who treats your medical conditions at a reasonable price, and who helps you spend your money wisely. We are not a replacement for insurance. We, at hello health, are simply your best healthcare resource for the vast majority of people who do not get hit by a bus in a given year. We save you money.

It costs $35 per month. Office visits are $100 to $200, short emails with doctors are free. Available only in north Brooklyn right now.

But if the milk jug is any indication, some of the changes will take getting used to on the part of consumers. Many spill milk when first using the new jugs.

“When we brought in the new milk, we were asking for feedback,” said Heather Mayo, vice president for merchandising at Sam’s Club, a division of Wal-Mart. “And they’re saying, ‘Why’s it in a square jug? Why’s it different? I want the same milk. What happened to my old milk?’ ”

Mary Tilton tried to educate the public a few days ago as she stood at a Sam’s Club in North Canton, about 50 miles south of Cleveland, luring shoppers with chocolate chip cookies and milk as she showed them how to pour from the new jugs.

“Just tilt it slowly and pour slowly,” Ms. Tilton said to passing customers as she talked about the jugs’ environmental benefits and cost savings. Instead of picking up the jug, as most people tend to do, she kept it on a table and gently tipped it toward a cup.

Will consumers learn how to pour “correctly” with the new milk jugs or will popular demand force Wal-Mart to go return to traditional milk containers? My guess is that the new jugs are here to stay, spills and all. Unwieldy product design typically doesn’t deter people from purchasing basic commodities (well… salad dressing, at least).

That said, what a strange mix of brilliant business-centered design and poor consumer-centered design! Someone obviously did their homework on the milk supply chain and discovered keys to making the whole process cheaper and more efficient for everyone involved. However, the lack of consumer research into something as basic as “is the jug easy to pour?” is hard to forgive.

View images of the new milk jug here and here.

Postscript: if you know who designed the new jug, post it in the comments!

He brought his own frustrated consumer experiences to bear in creating the business model, and eliminated many of the usual array of motor-oil choices—startup, high-mileage, various blends—from his inventory. “You get the shit out of the ground,” he said, referring to standard Castrol GTX, “or the shit made in the laboratory that’s the perfect lubricant” (Syntec). “Meaning, it’s either A or B. It’s not about the oil. It’s about the people. They got confused.” He stocked the places with baseball memorabilia and flat-screen TVs, and served free coffee (“the good kind”), so that customers would associate the experience with luxury rather than with cumbersome chores. Although he recently divested, owing in part to a rise in the minimum wage, he gave me directions to the Team Dykstra Automotive Center in Simi Valley, so that I could see for myself. “It’s the Taj Mahal of car washes,” he said. “Ask for Carlos.”

The Sporting Scene: Nails Never Fails: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

I strongly believe the latter, though I understand the reasons why museum sites tend toward the mundane. Of course, my ideal museum website does both: a unique, wonderful experience online that motivates further exploration in the museum itself.

If you’re interested in museum websites, this discussion on MetaFilter (linked below) is worth checking out.

Full disclosure: I often think about art museum websites.

“Websites were a wonderful way around the famous museum swamp.” | MetaFilter

JetBlue’s vice president for redevelopment, Richard J. Smyth, said being the sole tenant of the Saarinen building would not have worked operationally or financially for the airline. "More and more of our customers are checking in at home," he said. "The whole ticketing hall experience is not what it used to be."

It reminded me a little bit of a discussion in Networked Cities last year about re-purposing outdated infrastructure. I believe the topic of that conversation was phone booths that had been converted into wireless access points by Verizon. This seems like a similar design problem:

But something besides two kiosks must fill the 60,000-square-foot main hall, which sits under the vaulted juncture of the four curving concrete lobes that give the building its birdlike silhouette. Something must fill the galleries that once housed the Ambassador Club, the Paris Cafe and the Lisbon Lounge.

"It isn’t just important to save the old Saarinen terminal and its phenomenal architecture," Mr. DeCota said. "It’s important to find a thriving use. How can you continue to make this a centerpiece?"