At other franchises, this is a solved problem. Hot Donuts Now.<p><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=hot+donuts+now&client=safari&hl=en-us&tbm=isch&prmd=inmv&sxsrf=APq-WBsEy6aW6V1Pp3SCZry2YRi_zd4SEQ:1649540318631&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiD-u_F-If3AhUSLX0KHc7vBgwQ_AUIFygB&biw=500&bih=839&dpr=3" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/search?q=hot+donuts+now&client=safari...</a>
Twitter should have read this article before releasing their UI update that caused the active state of the Follow/Following button to have the <i>same background as the page itself</i> - to this day, it continues to confuse me.<p><a href="https://mashable.com/article/twitter-follow-button-redesign" rel="nofollow">https://mashable.com/article/twitter-follow-button-redesign</a><p>That said - Twitter's problem was that in a world where dark mode exists, it's indeed difficult to show an active state of a button while restricting yourself to white and black. Here, at least, the Ham Biscuit button is ham-colored, and when glowing it does somewhat resemble a piece of ham. So at the very least it has that going for it!
Assuming he wants to redesign it within the same basic constraints as the existing design, I would think that the message should be "ham biscuits sold out" rather than "ham biscuits available". That is, alert customers when you're sold out rather than before. The green light seems easy to miss, because green doesn't demand your attention as much as red does. Plus, the green sign is an example of one of my favorite anti-patterns, the "everything's okay!!!" alarm. Tell me when things go wrong, not when everything is working as I already expect it to.
I’d go with an always lit “HAM BISCUITS” and two signs below that say “AVAILABLE” and “SOLD OUT”, one lit and one dark, to be super explicit.<p>The problem with a green sign is that it might not stand out against a properly painted bike shed…
Red for danger green for go. Red and absence of red is the problem if the language is colour then if needs to be tri-state:<p><pre><code> Red: danger
Green: go
Black: bulb fail or system error
</code></pre>
Colour choices are culturally defined.
His potential solution requires the customer to know that there are two states to the sign. An unlit “Ham biscuits available” with a white check next to it would be confusing to those able to read it. Although the legibility would be lower it’s not ideal.
Oh gosh I read this part<p>> Only by talking to people can we actually know the true scope of the issue.<p>and was hoping the author had managed to call a franchisee who had one of these signs and could publish the results of a 15min phone interview with them.
Easy things made complicated. They'd need the light saying "no more ham biscuits". Delegating the actual meaning to the light color or blinking status is just a call for wrong interpretation.