A list of little nudges

1) The Justice department says it can save $573,000 through fiscal year 2010 by switching to double-sided printing.

2) Google’s Chrome browser saves ink by defaulting to extra wide margins. Hat tip: Wayne Smith.

3) Paul Sweeney notices that “big kids” slide on the playground has about a two foot gap to the first step, ensuring that you have to be a certain height to get on it in the first place. “Then I noticed that the swings were very low to the ground, and i noticed that the bigger kids were milling about but not sitting in them. Yeah, because their legs were too long, and it would be too uncomfortable. Thus leaving the swing available for the smaller kids (both play areas were right next to each other, thus ensuring that smaller kids and bigger kids had separate play areas).”

4) Stephen Hentrich reads at night. To limit his reading, he set up a switch to disconnect his bedside lamp from the power supply. The lamp reconnects a half hour later just in case he needs to find his way to the bathroom.

5) Chris Peterson wants an online bank account that takes the many “mental accounts” he has in his head for food, rent, iPod stuff, etc. and put them onto his banking homepage. The single checking account look just isn’t doing it for him.

How much money can double-sided printing save a city?

(Tulsa) Mayor Kathy Taylor announced that the city’s printers will now be set to two-sided printing by default, saving an estimated (and astounding!) $41,400 per year.

Via the Tulsa Initiative Blog.

David Plouffe, choice architect

Obama’s campaign was proud not only of what it had but also of what it lacked: drama. When David Plouffe, the campaign manager, ordered that all the printers be set up to print on both sides of each page, that was considered a dramatic moment at headquarters. (Hey, figure it out: You use half as much paper that way.)

From Roger Simon’s article, “Relentless,” on the Democratic race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Another printer nudge

First from Paul Brest, and now from Brad Hall.

Why isn’t collate the default option on printer settings? It should really not even be an option (who wants to sort a large file?), but at the very least it should be the default. Almost everyone has probably forgotten to click that box once and regretted that misstep.

The Hewlett Foundation puts a nudge into practice for its printers

From Paul Brest, president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Here’s a true story of a nudge at the Hewlett Foundation. The out-of-the-box default setting on printer software is to print on one side of a page—though users can choose to print on both sides. The Foundation has changed the default to duplex, allowing users to choose one-sided printing when they so desire. Although we have not undertaken an empirical study, this simple change seems to be saving paper (and trees).