How to design a car to make it look cleaner.

Have you ever pulled up behind a car and noticed dirty finger prints on the trunk of the car?  Most cars with lighter paint can accumulate a small amount of dirt without looking dirty.  It is only when some of that dirt is wiped off that you start to see how dirty the car actually is.

Without the fingerprints, this car would look clean.

The reason for this is that the human eye can detect contrast much better then it can detect absolute color shades.  Look at the image below.  If you cover the background with two pieces of paper, you will see that the middle bar is the same color from left to right.  The human eye perceives a change only in reference to other colors.

The eye can recognize contrast better than absolute colors.

When people touch a slightly dirty car, they scrape off some off the dust and create a contrast.  This happens to most cars where the back door lifts up.  Most people grab the bottom edge of the door when it is above their head leaving fingerprints.  To minimize the impact of this problem, car manufactures should add a design element like raised trim in a darker color to the bottom edge of the door.  When you reach up to close the door, you would only touch the trim piece instead of the solid color door.  This would prevent fingerprints wiping away some of the dirt and showing that the car is dirty.  Of course, the trim piece would be designed to match the overall style.

A black trim piece that people would touch when they close the door.

By adding this simple design element, a light color car will not have fingerprints on the back door when the car is dirty.  This will make the car look cleaner even when there is a slight layer of dust.  A clean looking car does not have to be washed as often thus saving people time.  Therefore, a small change to the design of the car will prevent busy people from having to spend their Saturdays waiting in line at the car wash.

Do you have any overdue library books?

The library is a great place to get access to books that you will read for a short time and do not want to buy.  This goes for both adults and children.  However, once you bring the library books home they have a tendency to get mixed in with your other books.  Many people spend more time looking for overdue library books then they spend actually reading the books.  Additionally, the late fees may be more then the book may have cost used on Amazon.

Can you find the library book?

The reason that it is hard to find a library book in your house is because it is difficult to tell the difference between a library books and your own books.  This is especially true when you are cleaning up after children.  Most library books have a small white sticker on the spine with the call numbers.  Hardly something that jumps out.  When you are looking for a particular overdue book, you do not want to look for a small white sticker just to find the missing book.

Instead, libraries should use a better visual system to identify their books.  One method would be transparent neon tape that is applied to the plastic cover that most library books have.  Another solution would be to paint the fore-edge (that is the edge of the pages opposite the spine, I had to look it up) a bright color.

The bright orange tape makes the library book stand out.

This way, instead of having to actively look for a missing library book, the book itself would stand out.  Whenever you see a pile of books your eye, would automatically see the library books and you would place these books in a special place.  Then you could always find the books when you are ready to read them or return them.

By increasing the visibility of library books, libraries would make it easier for people to find books at home reducing the number of late returns and reducing fines that people have to pay.  Then again, maybe libraries don’t mind if you return books late.