Everyday Usability — Around the House 1
In this series I want to point out good or bad usability things that I notice in every day life. The probability of others having noticed these things is high, but it will feel good to vent about the bad stuff, and to praise the good.
People tend to spend quite a lot of time at their respective homes. In fact, I would go as far as saying that the typical person would be at their home not only frequently, but regularly.
Every home has it’s quirks. The bathroom door that needs a little lift in order to lock it. The secret route down corridor that avoids all the creaky floor boards. The hob that relies on perfect timing of gas release and ignition to successfully light. Tricks learnt over time to smooth over the mild inconvenience of minor household issues.
Having recently moved into a new flat, I have had the joy of freshly discovering these issues. Before developing tricks in order to make my home-life more comfortable, I have decided to analyse how they could have been avoided altogether through more thoughtful design.
Allow me to take you on the journey of entering my abode. It’s a 2nd floor flat with, for the purposes of this blog, the address of ‘1b Fake Street’.
First of all, and this isn’t the main point of this blog, the door to 1b Fake Street isn’t found on Fake Street at all, but instead around the back of the building-block and accessed via a small, dark, barely discoverable alleyway; a nightmare for postmen and guests alike. For more on bad street design, see my blog post on the difficulties of being a bike courier.
Assuming we find the door we can make an attempt to get in. For reasons that support this narrative we don’t have keys, so have to get buzzed in. Here we come to our first issue.
In the flat is a standard buzzer-console. The person-at-the-door presses the buzzer, and the console’s phone rings. The person-in-the-flat picks up the phone and converses with the person-at-the-door to judge if they deserve entry or not. If they pass the test the person-in-the-flat presses one of two confusingly labeled buttons (but we’ll gloss over that) which opens that door. The person-at-the-door is no longer at the door, but instead, inside the building. Result!
Person-now-inside-the-building immediately walks up a set of stairs and comes to a landing with two flat doors; locked, with no flat numbers and no buzzers. Stumped.
The person-in-the-flat, overjoyed at the ease of letting person-now-inside-the-building in, quickly gets that sinking feeling, a feeling of contempt for said person, as they hear vigorous knocking at the flat-door which is located along the corridor and down a flight of stairs. This door can only be manually opened, and so the person-in-the-flat does the exact thing they were trying to avoid, and descends the stairs in order to open the door for the person they had just buzzed in.
Every time this happens it feels a little backwards; like it’s a work-in-progress, incomplete solution. The buzzer system has not solved the problem of having to meet your guest downstairs in order to let them in; you are still inconvenienced.
Solutions. Maybe putting the buzzer-console next to the flat-door? That’ll do; buzz them up and open the door in one go. Or even better; leave the console where it is and introduce a third button that unlocks the flat door (and be sure to make it’s label equally as confusing as the rest). I don’t foresee a situation where you would buzz someone into your building and not also be buzzing them into your flat, but even so, with the addition of a third button you would not be losing that pointless option, just gaining the option of successfully and properly letting someone in!
Another thing I have noticed about the buzzer system is the lack of feedback for “your guest has successfully entered”. When the person-in-the-flat presses the unlock door button, the person-at-the-door has a brief, stressful moment to understand how the door works; push, pull, handle turn, etc (and we all know how difficult that can be). Too many times I have missed this golden buzz zone and have had to make the embarrassing ‘re-buzz’.
To a certain extent the incorporation of video into these buzzers systems can help solve this issue, allowing the ‘buzzee’ to see if the ‘buzzer’ has been successful in entering. But these systems are not widespread, so what about other solutions, for example instead of a golden buzz zone, why not have a buzz that is good for one open of the door, an entry token, that expires once the door has been successfully opened? The buzzer system has been the same for so long that it’s possible people aren’t thinking about how it could be improved, and that is dangerous especially when more and more flat and apartment blocks are being built.
Unfortunately for me, I must endure with my system. Teamwork between my flat mates and I, where one answers the phone and buzzes the person-at-the-door into the building, and the other goes down to open the flat door has become the best method, however stupid that seems. For postal and food deliveries I tend not to use the buzzer at all and just do the two flights of stairs myself; I might as well inconvenience myself entirely and save the delivery person some hassle, right?.
Further down the line when Alexa, Siri and their friends have taken over our homes it will be the case where they can communicate with the person-at-the-door for us. They will say something like ‘Josh, your friend Mark is at the door’, and I can say ‘Thanks Technology, please let them in, and pop the kettle on whilst you’re at it’. That will be nice, but, until that day, I will continue to buzz like there is no tomorrow, and feel comfortable in my insight that the system is flawed, whilst doing absolutely nothing about it.
So yeah. That’s annoying.
