You’ve pressed it.

Probably more than once.

And almost nothing happened.

In this episode of Curious by Design, we explore why elevator “close door” buttons often don’t do anything, and why they still exist anyway.

Elevators are among the most carefully engineered systems in modern life, designed around safety, predictability, and shared use. But as elevators became automated, designers ran into a new problem that had nothing to do with mechanics and everything to do with psychology: people hate waiting, especially when they feel powerless.

For years, the “close door” button actually worked. Then accessibility laws standardized how long elevator doors must remain open to ensure safe entry for everyone. Shortening that delay was no longer allowed. Removing the button entirely would have confused users and required costly redesigns. So manufacturers left it in place, familiar, lit, and reassuring, but often inactive.

This episode unpacks how perceived control reduces frustration, why shared systems prioritize predictability over individual speed, and how design sometimes favors comfort over clarity. The button isn’t there to speed things up. It’s there to make waiting feel easier.

The next time you press “close door” and nothing happens, remember: you’re not being impatient. You’re responding exactly as the system was designed for you to respond.

That’s Curious by Design.

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Time feels natural. Constant. Inevitable.

But the way we experience time today is almost entirely invented.

In this episode of Curious by Design, we explore how time went from something humans observed, sunrise, seasons, cycles, to something we track, schedule, owe, and feel constantly behind on.

For most of history, time was local and flexible. An “hour” changed with the seasons. Noon was simply when the sun was highest where you stood. That all broke in the 19th century, when railroads needed synchronized schedules and consistency became a matter of safety. In 1883, American rail companies quietly erased local time, resetting clocks nationwide in an event later called “The Day of Two Noons.” Time became infrastructure before anyone voted on it.

From church bells to factory whistles, punch clocks to atomic clocks, this episode traces how time evolved into a system of coordination, productivity, and control. We look at how industrialization turned time into money, how precision created anxiety, and how modern life layered calendars, deadlines, and notifications onto a natural phenomenon that was never meant to feel this rigid.

Time isn’t just physics.

It’s culture.

It’s design.

It's construct.

And most of the stress we associate with it comes from systems less than two hundred years old.

The next time you feel rushed, behind, or like there’s never enough time, remember: you’re not failing at something natural. You’re navigating a design, one built for order and efficiency, not peace or presence.

That’s Curious by Design.

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You probably didn’t mean to look.

But something landed anyway.

In this special episode of Curious by Design, we explore why billboards look the way they do, and how they became one of the most effective attention-capture systems ever created.

Unlike street signs, billboards don’t guide or instruct. They interrupt. They live in shared space, competing for a fraction of your attention while you’re driving, thinking, or simply passing through. And they do it using principles discovered more than a century ago.

From painted ads along railroad lines to massive displays on interstate highways, billboards evolved alongside predictable movement. As trains, then cars, created steady streams of passing eyes, advertisers learned a critical lesson: at speed, people don’t read, they sample. Design shifted accordingly. Fewer words. Bigger shapes. High contrast. Faces. Repetition.

This episode breaks down the biology behind billboard design, why contrast grabs attention, why faces are impossible to ignore, why motion triggers awareness, and why familiarity often works better than persuasion. We look at how digital billboards borrowed the brain’s sensitivity to movement, why cities regulate how fast they can change, and why some places decided the tradeoff simply wasn’t worth it.

Billboards don’t wait for permission.

They rely on proximity.

And they work because attention doesn’t need consent, just exposure.

The next time something sticks in your mind long after you’ve passed it, remember: the most effective billboard isn’t the one you recall seeing. It’s the one that feels familiar later.

That’s Curious by Design.

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