How not to encourage attendee interaction

I went to BADCamp, Bay Area Drupal Camp, in Berkeley today. In it, I noticed a serious difference from Brooklyn Beta in being able to approach people. Last week at Brooklyn Beta, I was somewhat comfortable (there were exceptions) in approaching people, throwing my arms wide, and greeting people I had never met by their first names.

Why?

Here's why:

On my front, and on the front of the person I was about to hug, was a badge. On the badge hanging around my neck was my name, big and visible from a distance. Look at any picture from the Brooklyn Beta Flickr Pool and, if you can see the badge, I can pretty much guarantee you can see the person's name. As I approached in greeting, if the person I was approaching didn't know me, his eyes would quickly flick down to my badge, then back up, and move into an echo of the smile on my face.

Delightfully, because I could see names from a distance, I was able to identify people I had never met, knew only by twitter, and had no idea what they looked like (usually because their twitter icon wasn't a picture, looking at @colly and @jasonsantamaria, the latter with one eyebrow raised), and actively seek them out to say hello and meet them.

I loved this aspect of the conference.

Contrast the Brooklyn Beta badge to the BADCamp badge:

Now, the badge is lovely. The design is cute, and well customized for each attendee.

It is also not readable from any distance over four feet.

I have several times walked past Drupal people I would love to meet, simply because I didn't know who they were, and couldn't tell as I approached. The colors are not contrasting enough to be visible from a distance. The font is not large enough, it's not bold. I cannot read it easily.

Worse, it doesn't contain an easy way to glean contact information from the attendee's badge.

The information contained on it, in tiny print, is an attendee's Drupal user name, the attendee's employer's name, if provided, and, in the larger font, the attendee's name.

No email.

No website.

No employer's website.

No twitter id.

Yeah, so, if you're designing badges for a conference, and want people to talk to each other, the number one thing you should do to reduce barriers between people is put their names very big (bigger than you think you should) on the badge, and in contrasting colors.

Then add an easy way for people to contact each other. On the badge.