Signage and usability - an everyday things post

Air New Zealand recently announced inflight entertainment (link in new window). They had a campaign to announce it to people not in flight, but in transit on buses. Heres a quick critique of its effectiveness:

• The bus campaign advertising you can see on two seats one with a hand hold and one without. The the handle bar blocks the view of the picture in the front instance.
  
• The text, at the bottom of the advertisement is small and hard to read, even from a sitting height.
• At night its even more difficult to read as the lighting the bus is quite dim. Small text illegible in bus light when commuters, working or otherwise at peak hour are traveling.
• Physically it's a very uncomfortable to read. Bring at the extremity of your vision, the text makes you eyes move to their most furthest downwards 'setting'.

People may not even know what the ad is for and so the advert is rendered ineffective.


Solution (one possible):

• Place text in the middle of the advertisement and make larger so its easy to scan from a sitting height.
• Test with end users (use eye-tracking) in the setting and lighting its meant for, not on the screen in a design studio.
  

Designers should have got bus seat dimensions (distance from floor, between seats etc) and tested it for readability and advertisement recall with friends, customers etc.