Every time you see a sign, there’s a reason why it exists, and there’s probably a story behind that reason, too.
A few years back, my wife Jules and I went to one of those escape rooms while we were on holiday in Sydney. We had a free afternoon, and in fact on that day we actually completed three escape rooms back to back in different parts of the CBD.
These few hours of puzzle-solving gave me such brain-burn that I felt like I was coming down with a serious illness.
During that time, I vividly recall one sign that was attached to a couch in the corner of one of the rooms. The sign said:
“This couch is not a part of the escape room puzzle – there are no clues hidden on or around it.”
It seemed that rather than being the secret to success in the escape room, the couch was simply there for people to sit down on if they were exhausted from all the puzzle-solving.
What’s the story behind the sign?
My wife and I hadn’t looked at the couch as a source of clues just yet. Perhaps we would have if we were stuck. But the presence of the sign told me something – that someone had certainly perceived it as a source of clues in the past.
I imagined people taking off all the cushions and searching within it, and even tipping it over to see what clues were underneath. Perhaps some people even started to cut the fabric and see whether there were clues inside the cushions, like what you see in TV shows when the police are searching for a stash of heroin.
At some point, the people running the place must have seen enough examples of this sort of behaviour that they realised that they needed to do something about it. Not only would they have noticed people becoming distracted by the couch (and wasting their time), there was possibly some property damage to deal with, too.
So this simple sign was born.
Debating the usefulness of the sign.
Not everyone reads signs, and people often ignore them. But in this case, the sign seemed quite effective.
People in the escape room were there for a specific purpose: to solve the puzzle and escape. Personally, when I saw the sign, I thought, “Great, that’s one part of the room I don’t need to worry about to solve this riddle.”
The sign made my life easier. It provided a simple shortcut to reduce my mental load and focus my attention, rather than being distracted by yet another part of an already complex room that I would need to investigate.
The sign wasn’t telling me I couldn’t do something. It was instead indirectly telling me that there are better ways to spend my time than investigating that couch, and this information was directly related to the task at hand.
Rules.
Some signs give us rules.
No parking. No standing. No smoking.
Thinking about it, there are a lot of signs with rules that tell us we can’t do things.
Many rules are met with resistance. “Why can’t I park here?”
“I can smoke here if I want!”
People, in general, don’t like it when a rule reduces their autonomy – their ability to decide how to run their life. Especially when that rule runs contrary to their current objectives. If I’m running late for a meeting, it is decidedly inconvenient that I can’t park in that very nearby parking spot.
We even see people failing to heed rules that seem to be a case of common sense, hygienic rules like “No littering. Fines apply.” After all, if people littered as much as they did in the 1980s, our planet would be piled high with rubbish (even more than it is now) in our potentially pristine living areas.
I get the sense that people don’t ignore rules like “No littering” because they want to be surrounded by rubbish. More likely they don’t notice these signs in our sign-heavy society, or they make the call that littering isn’t such a big deal and of course, “nobody tells me what to do.”
I think many of us also resent the fact that we are told what to do in so many contexts. We are continuously obeying rules, paying our mortgages and electricity bills, turning up to work at the right time, doing what the boss says.
Something’s got to give, occasionally, which is why I think people sometimes enjoy small moments of disobedience like littering in front of a “No littering” sign. It’s that rebellion that tells everyone that we can’t be controlled… when in fact we pretty much are, most of the time.
One problem with rules is that they tend to come from an authority. Someone in charge, who owns and administers the given rule. We often make our own mind up about whether that authority is justified. If we don’t think so, we might just go ahead and ignore that rule.
Some people seem to think that most rules come from some suit-and-tie-wearing government worker who has “no idea what they’re talking about” and therefore should not be obeyed. But behind every rule is a story of some kind.
Information is different.
If it’s not about rules, then usually signs provide us with information. There are no clues on this couch. Opening hours: 9am to 5pm. Tickets sold here.
Information on signs can be helpful, and is delivered from a more neutral perspective. The information is usually aimed to guide us, to direct our attention.
Sure, it might be frustrating that the store is closed when you hoped it would be open, but now you know the opening hours and can plan for next time.
Informational signs tend to feel less offensive than rules. They don’t feel as if they’re cramping our style in the same way – they’re simply here to help us. Information is provided for us to do with as we please, rather than as a directive.
But there is still a need for rules-based signs. In the no-parking example, if we’re trying not to be too directive, we might craft a sign like “Parking is available here.”, rather than “You can’t park here.”
But that would take an awful lot of signage, because you’d need to label every possible parking area, rather than labelling the prohibited areas by exception. It makes good sense just to inform people about the lesser set of things they can’t do, than label everything that they can do.
But the problem of disobeying rules still exists.
Could we make the signs bigger?
I wonder what might happen if the stories behind the signs were more apparent.
“No parking, because it obstructs the view of the street and someone walked into traffic and was badly injured a few years ago.”
“No smoking, because it’s bad for your health, and research has shown that even passive smoking can cause cancer, so we don’t want to put all these nearby patrons at risk when they haven’t made the conscious decision to smoke.”
There is an obvious downside – those signs would be huge and people might not take the time to read them. But they might also explain some useful context which is missing.
Unfortunately, people don’t really seek the stories behind the signs. People are busy, distracted and focusing on their next priority. I personally enjoy thinking and pondering, but there are times where even I need to be somewhere or do something without thinking deeply about why there is a “No swimming” sign on a 10 centimetre-deep fountain.
Even if people did think about the story behind the sign, perhaps they’d fabricate their own different version – a story that better suits their own agenda and helps them to justify their disobedience of the rules.
How can we make people more likely to follow direction?
We can, of course, tell people they’re going to be punished if they don’t do something we want. That is the stick in the carrot and stick method of motivation. But we know this can lead to resentment and eventual rebellion if we aren’t careful. Particularly because these days, people are well-used to having choices about what to do and where to work.
When people understand the story behind a given direction, they gain clarity about why it exists in the first place. Rather than being able to concoct their own story about why something is the way it is, they are forced to confront the bigger picture.
This means they are making a more informed choice about whether to follow, or to go a different way. And if the story makes logical sense, is believable and resolves some sort of harmful outcome that is best avoided, the choice becomes simpler.
And if people still choose not to follow, they’re confronted with a choice of identity – am I somebody who doesn’t care about the harm that can come from disobeying the direction? Am I really someone who would prioritise my own interests, now that I know what the potential harm could be?
If you need people to focus their effort, provide information.
But if you need people to follow direction, it might help if they understand the story behind it.
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