Design Diary — Control Panels on Elevator
Background
It was a sunny day. The accident occurred when I first entered the Robert B. Rowling Hall(RRH). I was already in the elevator and the door began to shut. Suddenly a man rushed to enter the elevator and I hurried to push the button to avoid the door’s close. However, it led the door to shut quicker because I hit the wrong shut button, rather than open one. Then the man missed the elevator. I felt guilty and blame myself for the mistake. Until my friend reminded me of the elevator control panel at the Perry-Castañeda Library (PCL), then I realized that it was a totally new mapping of the elevator control panel in RRH, which stimulated me much more time to learn it.
The location:
The elevator in the Robert B. Rowling Hall (RRH), Austin, TX (USA)
General Comment:
The mapping of the control panel is simple but ambiguous. The door-shut and door-open buttons are presented in the vertical line. The buttons are not easy for me to figure out in a short time.
Problem
The vertical panel mapping design took me more time to learn and figure it out. The mental model of mine for the control panel is the door-shut and open buttons are usually distributed horizontally.
Users invariably complain whenever a new approach is introduced into an existing array of products and systems. — Don Norman
The control panel, it reminds me of the seven stages of the action cycle. Suppose I was in the elevator, waiting for the door shutting until the man’s rushing in. My current activity is standing and waiting for the doors’ shutting, but my goal is starting to stop the doors’ shutting because of the man. This realization triggers a new goal: doing something to stop the doors’ shutting. How do I do that? I have many choices. I could push the door-open button, or use hands force the doors open. This is the planning stage, determining which of those many possible actions to follow. But even when I decide to push the door-open button, I still have to determine how to specify how I will do it. That is the key problem in the whole process. I didn’t figure out the correct button in the limited time. Finally, I executed the action — pushing the wrong door-shut button. Most of these stages are subconscious because it happened in a short time without any other thoughts.
Redesign
By mapping the door-shut and open button horizontally like the elevator control panel at PCL, it will reduce users’ learning time to a large extent and fit their mental model. Thus, in the same situation, people would not meet the same dilemma as mine.
Reference:
Norman, D. (2013). The design of everyday things: Revised and expanded edition. Basic Books.
