<story><title>Banner blindness</title><url>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banner_blindness</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>saghm</author><text>I feel like a similar thing happens in &amp;quot;real life&amp;quot; sometimes, not just on websites. Back in high school, I used to volunteer at an animal shelter, and we had an area out back where we&amp;#x27;d walk the dogs or let them run around in one of a few fenced in areas throughout the day so they could go to the bathroom and get some exercise. The door leading out here was located in one of the rooms with dog kennels, so people coming to potentially adopt a dog would walk through this room a lot, and often they&amp;#x27;d try to walk out back and watch or participate with the volunteers and staff taking some of the dogs out. We&amp;#x27;d ask them politely to go back inside because they aren&amp;#x27;t allowed out there and point out the very large sign in large font on the door saying this, and every time they&amp;#x27;d always act very surprised because they claimed not to have seen it. I&amp;#x27;m sure some people were just feigning ignorance because it seemed easier, but the sheer number of people claiming it makes it believable that at least _some_ of them genuinely didn&amp;#x27;t notice; they saw a door, they wanted to go through, and they opened it without processing the words right in front of their face.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>petsfed</author><text>There are situations where its hard to understand &lt;i&gt;how&lt;/i&gt; even the non-verbal warnings didn&amp;#x27;t latch though.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;no unauthorized personnel&amp;quot;, and then there&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;Fire door, alarm will sound&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;In college, i worked at a university recreation center, and the desk I worked at was about 15 feet from a fire door. It sat somewhat between the weight room and the men&amp;#x27;s locker room, so virtually all male customers walked past this specific, well marked, fire door during their visit. And about 2-3 times a week, while I was working, somebody would finish up their workout and just push that door open and walk out. And every time, they&amp;#x27;d look thunderstruck that the alarm did in fact sound.&lt;p&gt;I eventually dropped all pretense of understanding that they were on autopilot, and began commenting as I deactivated and reactivated the alarm AGAIN &amp;quot;I thought universities required students be able to read&amp;quot;. Only one person ever got short with me over that, and all I had to do was point at the letters that were bigger than their head, directly at eye level, 18 inches from their face, while they pushed the door open.</text></comment>
<story><title>Banner blindness</title><url>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banner_blindness</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>saghm</author><text>I feel like a similar thing happens in &amp;quot;real life&amp;quot; sometimes, not just on websites. Back in high school, I used to volunteer at an animal shelter, and we had an area out back where we&amp;#x27;d walk the dogs or let them run around in one of a few fenced in areas throughout the day so they could go to the bathroom and get some exercise. The door leading out here was located in one of the rooms with dog kennels, so people coming to potentially adopt a dog would walk through this room a lot, and often they&amp;#x27;d try to walk out back and watch or participate with the volunteers and staff taking some of the dogs out. We&amp;#x27;d ask them politely to go back inside because they aren&amp;#x27;t allowed out there and point out the very large sign in large font on the door saying this, and every time they&amp;#x27;d always act very surprised because they claimed not to have seen it. I&amp;#x27;m sure some people were just feigning ignorance because it seemed easier, but the sheer number of people claiming it makes it believable that at least _some_ of them genuinely didn&amp;#x27;t notice; they saw a door, they wanted to go through, and they opened it without processing the words right in front of their face.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bagels</author><text>There are so many signs that everyone encounters everyday that are of no consequence. Everyone develops the habit of not reading them.</text></comment>