The 15 West building is a RISD dorm for upperclassmen which houses the majority of undergraduate RISD students. As is the case with all campus buildings, one needs card access to enter.
15 West has two set of doors which also means the user has to scan their card twice. Both scanning systems are faulty in their own way. The external scanning system has a lag — the door does not immediately unlock after scanning the card. This lag in time is unexpected, and unknown to the user who automatically reaches out to pull the door right after scanning the ID. If one tries to pull it open in the small window of time that the door takes to unlock, it remains locked and you have to swipe again. This creates an issue of going back and forth between the door and the card reader. Additionally, most students are often carrying supplies and materials to and from class, so the level of inconvenience increases further.
Once the user is past the external entrance, they have to scan their card once again on the inside to get through a second set of doors. Here, public safety (the on campus police service) has a small sized cabin next to the card reader before the second set of doors. This allows them to keep check on whether or not the students are scanning their card. This internal door is also problematic. Though it opens promptly and stays that way for a good amount of time, one cannot re-open it once it begins to close. The user has to wait for the door to close completely and the lock to set in, then scan the card to open it again. This seemingly small issue often causes a line up or crowding around the card reader.
A simple solution would be to have a more responsive system in both cases — for the outer and the inner doors. For the external door, the system should be improved so that it unlocks the instant an ID is scanned. The internal door should be programmed to swing open even if it is already in the process of closing, thus making it more responsive to the commands sent by the card reader. This will solve the crowding issue at both doors.
Looking at it from the designer’s perspective, it is possible that he/she did not think that this would be a problem, since it is very difficult to apprehend how such a small time lag would affect the user. They could have also made a choice to pick a cheaper sensor in order to cut down cost. Additionally, the technology may have worn down over the years. Moreover, since it seems to be a relatively small inconvenience, RISD may have decided to stick with the current system until it breaks down completely.
