The weird blackboard

We have all seen sliding blackboards. I came across a blackboard in one of the classrooms which was very unusual. It stretched from almost the roof all the way to the floor. This blackboard caught my attention as it was the first time I ever saw a blackboard that stretched till the ground. It is a sliding blackboard that is split vertically and slides from right to left. Once you complete writing on one board you can slide it to the left most region and get access to the next board behind it.

This was sort of weird. I was wondering why one might design such a black board. The length of each black board was not sufficient enough to even write a complete sentence. The board gets mostly filled vertically. The other way one could use them was to place all the three boards next to each other and start writing from extreme left and go all the way to the extreme right. Even then, it is hard or tough to reach the top part or the bottom part of each of the board. Does the designer expect the person writing on the board to bend down and go all the way to the bottom to write? I was even confused how one would access the top part of the board too. It is not even a horizontally split board that one might pull up, write and then push it down. Considering an average human being who is 5’5” to 6” tall would use this board most of the time, I highly doubt he can ever write at the top end of the board. The same applies to the bottom too. So basically the lower part and the top part of the board is not used most of the times because of it lack of accessibility. Its only the center region that is being used. I strongly feel this is a poor user interface by which the product itself is not being used to its maximum potential.

Before I think of coming up with a solution here, first of all, I would like to think why one might even want to write from the ceiling to the floor. We never write from top to bottom. Whether it is language or math, Its always written from left to write. Therefore, a blackboard does not have to be designed breadthwise but lengthwise. Reducing the length and increasing the breadth will not serve any purpose. It must be designed in such a way that an average human being can access all the areas of the board with not much effort. If we want to have multiple instances of the board, a solution I would suggest is having a horizontal split than vertical. Each instance of the board can be used completely. This way, there won’t be any space wasted either at the top or at the bottom.