Part of the road at the office complex where I work was repaved this week. This would not normally be anything worth commenting about, were it not for the fact that the paint used to re-line the roads is white instead of yellow (as it was previously). And while I can’t say this with absolute certainty, I am relatively sure that the standard in this country for road paint is yellow to seperate lanes going in different directions and white to seperate lanes going in the same direction. That being said, I find it extremely strange to see a double (or single in some cases) white line seperating a road that has one lane in each direction. It just isn’t right.

Granted, I don’t expect people to start driving on the wrong side of the road. There haven’t been any accidents (to my knowledge) since the switch. Still, don’t they want to do it right? I find this comparable to someone who says “That’s a mute point” or “for all intensive purposes” — I understand what they mean, but their credibility surely takes a dip for having said it that way. In addition, not doing or saying something the correct way, in many cases, can cause confusion.

This same concept also applies to designing interfaces for the web (and beyond) — many times designers feel the desire to “paint yellow lines white”, but in most cases it is better to stick to standards that users understand and know. Obviously there are exceptions to this rule — the elevators at the Marriott Marquis being a prime example — but for every time that changing the standard is effective, there are plenty of mistakes, such as the flash-based site I saw the other day that had scrollbars on the LEFT side of the page.

The moral of the story — be careful when changing established standards in any design.

On a semi-related note, here’s an interesting site that addresses some of the grammar issues I just mentioned.

NOTE: Shortly after I wrote this, the white was changed to yellow. Perhaps it was just temporary, perhaps they realized the absurdity!