Oh baby, just where do I start with this one. In it's infinite wisdom, Sydney mass transit (known as the RTA) has decided to begin replacing IMHO the already effective train station displays. Here are the new ones:

Let's breakdown the ways in which this active signage is confusing.

1. Primarily, instead of the previous congruous interface on one screen - two screens are now provided, yet the interface is divided. This immediately separates the information uneccessarily. confusion around what the purpose of each display is immediate, especially for existing commuters who are accsutomed to the single screen, single interface of yore. The real estate of the prior single plasma panel is probably 75% of this combined two screen format. This could unfortunately be an example of the classic management mistake of a) having the requirement to expand the visible area (the new 25% provided by 2 smaller screens combined) yet b) realising that the software to run the screens cannot merge the information into 1 display or otherwise remove the vertical separator that divides the displays. This may be the inital culrpit behind why usability was lost, very early on in this civic projecte.
2. Eye tracking will show that the most prominent and inital hot spot is actuall the "Following Trains" which look like embossed buttons on top of a contrasting blue display. This is unfortunate for someone who didn't bother to look back up and to the right for the "Next Train" which is camouflagued amongst a wash of white in the right scrolling monitor. Incidentally, I assume the business requirement here was to provide "more information about following trains;" something which was not availible in the prior interface. So, what should have become a benefit, implemented incorrectly, now is a distraction to the single most important use case: "When is the next darn train?" I can almost imagine a designer reflecting that the right screen should be used to replicate the original display (from an information architecture perspective, it does) and simply using the left panel to display otherwise new and auxilliary information. This approach fails to appreciate overall analysis of the combined result, while trying to correctly minimise changes to existing commuters.
3. In fact, the effect power of borders and box shapes even creates an area of more attention towards the blue box for "8 cars" than the time of the next train. Now let me  ask you as a commuter, how many times have you really cared about the exact number of cars on a given train, or how often this actually factored into a decision about your travel? I can honestly answer never for me - perhaps more important for the staff or authorities on patrol.

We'll look in our next blog post on how I would have redesigned this interface for greater usability.