To be a better UI/UX designer, go to a foreign country, rent a car, and drive.

> Many regions of Michigan, for example, do not have left turn lanes. You're expected to make a right and then a U-turn.

More about the Michigan Left: http://www.michiganhighways.org/indepth/michigan_left.html

When I first moved to Pennsylvania I was completely dumbfounded the first time I came to a stop at a stop sign and the driver behind laid on his horn - I didn't read the "fine print" below the sign: except for right turn[1]

[1]: http://www.pacode.com/secure/data/067/chapter212/s212.107.ht...

Edit: Here's a source with a photo: http://www.another-mile.com/2009/12/stop-means-stop-except-r...

This is really all you could contribute to this discussion?

Definitely thought some about that. Mostly the point of the article was to say that to grow as a UI/UX dev you need to shock yourself out of being numb. So in that regard, it would work with anyone driving in a country they don't live in. They are all so different. Trying to kill comfort zone.

I've driven in over 11 different countries, and I find the signage in the UK to still be the strangest but at least I'm used to it. In the denser urban areas the biggest main streets seem to have the least signs naming the street. The alley ways off it will all have signs, but the big street you are just supposed to 'know'. Also what gets me is that when there is an intersection going through a roundabout, there is a sign well before the turn, but not always actually at the turn. Most other places have a sign before and at the turn. It's something to get used to in the UK, otherwise you see some turns and wonder what the sign before the turn said because you didn't read every single big board with multiple turns on it to check if one of them is what you are after.

this positioning makes the rules clear: you must _always_ stop before a red light. no exceptions.

* Some of the traffic lights in some European countries.

This is not the case in most of England, also in France there is often another set of lights lower down on the pole positioned for the driver in the car in the front of the queue.

Here in Germany they are at least overhead and to the right on the pole, the latter easily visible from the first car. Additionally some intersections have them on the left side on a pole as well.

In the UK they are both; the back of the 'near' traffic lights for you act as the 'far' traffic lights for the opposite drivers, and vice-versa. This allows you both to see the lights at the junction, and to see them easier on approach, even if the junction is at the top of a hill/etc.

Many countries in Europe have them on both sides. Not having the one on the near side is my biggest problem when driving in the US, it has happened that I have to slam down on the brakes because I'm already 10 meters away from the intersection when I see the red light.

In any case, placing them only on the near side is often intentional, as it forces drivers to stop far away from the intersection itself. This leaves space for pedestrians, and provides drivers from the other directions with more space to look around. It also creates a buffer where cars can move into when an emergency vehicle needs to pass the queues.

No. A million times no.

As you said traffic lights in Europe are on the leading edge of an intersection. This may in fact be the simplest and most foundational bit of usability and user experience innovation the US could learn from Europe in intersection design.

1) Placing the signals on the leading edge means that the stop line is ~10 feet back from the intersection. If you decide to ignore the stop line, you can't see the signals. BAM instant conformance to proper road use.

2) Following on that, sitting 10 feet back from the intersection you can see everything in the intersection. You can see pedestrians crossing in front of you and to the right of you. You can see cyclists entering into the intersection and passing you far before you enter the intersection. As a ped or cyclist this makes intersections much, much safer.

3) As you approach an intersection, and the light switches to yellow and then red, there can be no doubt about the state of the light as you enter the intersection. You can't enter or pass through the intersection on a red light as you might in the US, because it will be red before you even get to the intersection. This seriously reduces running lights or flying through the intersection, making intersections much, much safter for motorists.

For sure. I'm used to having them both before and after the intersection, so then you can clearly see which part it is for, and you can see it wherever you are, and you can see it well from a long distance. Some countries in Europe have some additional lights at car window level close to the intersection, this helps a lot, but still not ideal.

The street lights were the most confusing thing moving from Germany to the US. The first year or so my heart often jumped when I felt like I was running a red light after turning right on a green.

Now when I go back after driving in the US for 20 years there are a lot of things that seem weird in Germany. Not having right-on-red (and even left on red into one-ways) is a huge plus here. I also think there's too much yielding to the car coming from much smaller streets on the right.

There's a new philosophy of road safety in Europe based around reducing the usability of roads for drivers and increasing it for pedestrians. (You might say that it follows as a lemma from the observation that Volvo drivers have more accidents.)

E.g. if you make the boundary between "road" and "not road" less clear and remove lane markings, drivers will drive more carefully. (Amazing!) I visited some towns in Switzerland a few years ago that have taken this approach to extremes -- there are no hard boundaries between road and sidewalk, seven-way intersections (with trams) and no traffic lights -- and it works well (especially for pedestrians).

While we were there, one Irish guy asked me if I knew why the roads were so crooked. When I asked why he told me "Because the guys that built them were all drunk". It was good for a laugh.

Keep an eye out and I'll put some in another article I'm working on.

While I agree with you, that article has been written to death.