Even though this blog is about software, I might occasionally post some inspiration from real life. I saw this today outside of an RTA transit station in Cleveland. I have not seen it light up, but I imagine it would blink when the train is near the station, which would mean: hurry up if you want to catch the next train.

It reminded me of this disambiguation detail in Finder in a way: a tiny but thoughtful detail at the right moment can go a long way.

In Kraków last year, I saw a great variant of this: A tram waiting at the terminus would show exactly when it departs, so you can choose to rush when it’s close, or to run a quick errand if it’s not.

(I know a lot of countries have extremely user-friendly transit systems where those details were hot news 30 years ago, but I do not take them for granted.)