I love the fact that there are color-coded levels (1) in several of parking lots I’ve visited (2).

I presume this is done to make it easier for you to remember where you parked your car? (See also “Now remember, we’re in the Itchy lot.”)

On the other hand, it makes me *nuts* when these same parking structures don’t take the extra two minutes to make that which-level-color-cue truly useful.

Imagine this: you park in the same lot every day and you usually notice the *color* of the level as you’re coming in (Teal, aka 4, for example). Then you have A Day, emerging eleventy-three hours later in a mental pea soup. As you step into the elevator you remember you were parked on Teal, but “Teal” is not a choice on the elevator buttons, as they are numbered.

Aaaaaargh! How hard would it have been for them to put little stickers around each number with the associated floor color? This (a) would have cost nearly nothing and (b) would have provided additional wayfinding info without removing the level number (3).

I have a Cricut. Several times I’ve considered just cutting colored vinyl rings out and applying them myself… I’ve always chickened out, though, as I was afraid I’d be accused of vandalism :-(

(1) usually they seem to go rainbow-going-up, with red at the bottom and purple at the top. I don’t know whether this is a convention or a coincidence.

(2) like the one attached to the Raleigh Red Hat office.

(3) using colored buttons with no numbers would be a Bad Idea b/c folks are colorblind, etc.