The accidental brilliance of makeshift signs | Kate Canales

0:01You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. The signs really are everywhere. If we stop to appreciate the wonder of the world, there are so many moments of accidental brilliance that can be experienced. Sometimes these signs are kind of subtle. You just know what to do. Other times, this sign is actually helping us think. That's designer and professor Kate Canalis. In her talk, she shares a unique obsession with the handmade signs posted all around us. The subtle, helpful, and oftentimes hysterical extra instructions humans add to point-of-sale machines, doors, and conspicuously in bathrooms.

0:53She took to the TED stage to share a selection of the hundreds of photos of quirky signs she's collected over the years and offers a simple but important message. I think of myself as almost like an anthropologist in the world of everyday instructions. No matter how you may feel about the advancement of technology in our everyday lives, these signs are evidence that we still need each other out here in the real world to do some very basic things. This talk is highly visual, but we wanted to make sure we could share it with our podcast listeners as well. So we reached out to Kate and asked if she would describe the images for you, which we're including here alongside portions of her talk.

1:39That's all coming up right after a short break.

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4:10And now, our TED Talk of the day. My name is Kate. I am a designer. And my design superpower is noticing. I am pretty much always watching how people navigate the designed world. And one of the things that I notice a lot is stuff like this. For over 20 years, I have been taking photographs of signs that help us get around everyday situations. Places where, for whatever reason, we just need a little extra coaching. Signs like this.

4:56Kate Canales: And like this. Hi, everyone. Kate Canales here. I'm joining you from Austin, Texas. I want to try to guide you through some of the images that I shared on stage during my talk. I opened the talk with a series of photographs that I've taken that made me think about design and how hard it is to get it right. I started out with an image of a door handle. I took this in a parking garage. And above the door handle, someone's used a label maker. And it says, push, then pull. I also shared an image of a clock on the wall. and over the clock is a huge sign that says broken in big red letters and below it is another clock.

5:41Kate Canales: So there are two clocks on the wall and the only way you know which clock is right is that one of them has a big sign over it that says broken. These signs are not slick. They aren't designed in the way that you might be visualizing. They're improvised. They're on post-it notes. They're So ad hoc. I really love this kind of sign a lot, where something is technically fully functioning the way it was designed, like this keypad. But it's not really usable without this extra layer of instruction. So imagine you're at a door, you need to unlock it, there's a keypad there. And this extra layer of instruction that I'm describing is a sign that says press star at end of code, which makes the keypad usable.

6:30And I've come to see the makers of the signs as designers. They're coming in after the work of the original design team to make it so that you can actually do the thing that you're trying to do, in this case, unlock a door. Sometimes these signs are kind of subtle. You just know what to do.

6:54Kate Canales: Here I showed a picture of a pair of doors, and each door has the shape of a human hand on them, as if to say, push. Pretty self-explanatory, right? Other times...

7:11This sign is actually helping us think. We have been so trained to see red as danger. Thankfully, here someone is letting us know it is just a light switch.

7:23Kate Canales: The picture I showed here is a wall plate that is fire engine red. And it looks like a fire alarm or some other kind of emergency thing. And then above it is a laminated sign in hot pink that says, this is a light switch. I think of myself as almost like an anthropologist in the world of everyday instructions. I am obsessed. I have hundreds and hundreds of photographs. You've all seen signs like this. You've probably seen them already today, especially if you have paid for something. We have a very consistent issue with point-of-sale machines. I take so many photographs, and there are certain themes that have emerged.

8:19Kate Canales: And one of them is around point of sale credit card machines. I have dozens and dozens of pictures of little handwritten notes on point of sale credit card machines. They're all different. Here's one that has four different signs on it that are handwritten. One says tap and hold card over screen. One says insert chip and it has an arrow in a certain direction. and then it says to tap and hold card over screen again in a different color. We also, as a group, seem to really be struggling in the public bathroom. An inexplicably large proportion of my photos were taken in a public bathroom. I could have done the entire talk using only public bathroom photos.

9:12Kate Canales: A really curious image from my collection that speaks to this point is a sign above a toilet that says, do not sit on the sink, which strikes me as something we shouldn't need to be told to do, but clearly is part of some kind of pattern or incident related to people sitting on a sink. Above it is a sign that makes a lot more sense that says, close the lid before you flush. And I find this bewildering, but also weirdly delightful.

9:49A place that we all use every day still requires so much guidance.

9:57Kate Canales: Another incredible image that speaks to this bewildering pattern of human behavior is one that says, notice. Toilets and urinals flushed with reclaimed water. Do not drink.

10:16This machine fills cups with water. That's all it does. You would be forgiven for thinking I could do more, like send a fax or analyze a blood sample. It has been so over-designed, so slicked out. Its function is not legible to us until someone made these signs.

10:38Kate Canales: At this point in the talk, I'm wanting to get into this idea that designers face about helping people perceive what to do with a design without telling them, without signs. And I'm sharing a picture of a water dispenser that looks like something from a spacecraft. It's a freestanding machine. It's got this blue lacquered plastic. It's very slick. There are no perceptible buttons. The interface is almost invisible. Nothing about it says, I'm a water dispenser. Here's where you could get water. When I started taking these photographs, I really was on a mission to document examples of bad design, the way it frustrates and interferes.

11:25But I've become much more interested in preserving the signs as examples of ingenious human problem solving.

11:34Kate Canales: I feel like everybody can relate to the sign that I'm showing here. This actually was taken outside of an office store on the campus where I work, and it says in big black letters scrawled across this piece of paper. It says, this is not a restroom and not is underlined three times. And then there's an arrow that says, it is that other way. You can kind of imagine how many times someone walked into an office thinking it was a restroom and how many times someone's office was walked into before this sign, which is very, very adamantly stated, was posted. not is not when we arrive on the scene the sign is already here but i love to imagine what was happening before there was a sign visualize with me this scene before there was a sign people are starting to congregate outside of this fourth floor elevator that does not stop on the fourth floor until someone fixed it with a sign.

12:43Now, when you are solving problems for humans and you yourself are human, sometimes it can be hard. And I have several examples of how hard sometimes it is to get this right.

12:56Kate Canales: To get this point across, I had to share an image that is one of my absolute all-time favorites that was sent to me by someone else. It's a pair of doors. They both go into the same establishment. arrangement and each door has a sign taped to it that says, please use the other door. So the image reads, please use the other door. And then you move over to the next door and it says, please use the other door. As a designer, I actually appreciate how hard this is. The intention is unknown. I'm not sure how you're supposed to walk into this place, but it is really hard to design experiences for people that are super clear.

13:39Kate Canales: It's almost existential. The reality is that most of the signs in my collection are as simple as this. Downstairs, upstairs. It's almost invisible. The original design assignment was not complex, but it still missed the mark. And I think a version of this is always going to be true. We're all out here designing experiences for one another. Sometimes we nail it. Sometimes it is terrible. Sometimes we need someone else to come in and put a layer over it, make it okay. Walking through a door should be very intuitive, but doors are an area where we still need a ton of support. This is a reality that I actually find reassuring.

14:23These push signs with their

14:24Kate Canales: little scotch tape borders, the very fact that there are two of them. The image I show here is a glass door to a bodega, and there are two huge push signs in red ink that have been taped to the door. This is so tender to me. This is so human. No matter how you may feel about the advancement of technology in our everyday lives, these signs are evidence that we still need each other out here in the real world to do some very basic things. I chose to end the talk with an image that I took at the Texas State Fair many years ago of an ostrich who's in an enclosure. And on the outside of the enclosure, instead of do not feed the ostrich or be careful of your fingers, it just says we are not responsible for accidents.

15:22Kate Canales: So much of the world around us is designed and we sometimes need a little extra help. I see these signs everywhere as a lens over the world and yes they are about design but they're like little love letters from strangers. I see them as these little notes that people are leaving for each other. Someone thought it would be important to tell me which way to turn the knob on the paper towel dispenser and it's super helpful It brings me gratitude. It is an incredible practice of noticing, and I think it's a lovely little, almost like a meditation practice. And it's such a delightful lens that I carry all the time.

16:06Kate Canales: I think the reason I wanted to do the talk was this idea of paying attention and seeing these little pieces of evidence from one another on the world. And I guess my hope would be that people see the talk and they'll notice a sign the next time. I do see these signs as evidence of how we need each other. And we're doing it. We're helping each other out. It's so beautiful. The person who came before us took the time to leave some instructions to make sure that our experience is a little bit better than theirs. And that is a sign of humanity that I am always happy to stumble upon. Thank you.

16:57That was Kate Canales at TED Next 2025. And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. This talk was fact-checked by the TED Research Team and produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Lucy Little, and Tonsika Sungmarnivong. Additional support from Emma Taubner and Daniela Ballarezzo. I'm Elise Hugh. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed. Thanks for listening.

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