Recent searches
Search options
Elevators are the #UX gift that keeps giving. I just discovered this beauty. On top of that, the door closing times are very slow so it's very helpful to push a close button. I just stood and stared...
To be fair, there is a rear door so one set is for the front door and one is the back.
However, why on God's green earth, do you need two DIFFERENT close and open buttons. Just one set would have sufficed.
And this doesn't even go into the issues with this icon design. The two arrow approach is far too abstract, making them far from obvious at a quick glance.
And for people noticing the braille, two spell out "open" and the other two "close" so they are actually WORSE than the slightly different icons
@scottjenson ...but which set is the front door and which is the back one 
@hazelnot excellent point.
Elevator in my building is similar. Four buttons, two with a line down the middle. Utterly no way to know which is for which door.
Side story: Bunch of workmen got in with me recently. I said, "which floor, guys?" They said "penthouse." I pushed "PH" and said, "I always thought that meant 'power house.'" One of them said, "Well. We're in it now."
@hazelnot @scottjenson Not even the braille says...
@lpwaterhouse Oh god yeah, the symbols are different but the braille is the same, fucking hell
@scottjenson And what is the meaning of the different width of the gap between the arrows ...
@scottjenson My workplace just moved to a new office. One of the elevators has doors in two directions, so also two sets of door control buttons.
However, the decision was made to not have 'close the door' buttons, only the opening ones. They were replaced so now the elevator has four 'keep doors open' buttons.
Brilliance.
@scottjenson It would be interesting to interpret the braille and see how they describe it
@scottjenson Duh. The buttons are, L-R,Top down:
Open
Open... slower (aka the Rick Sanchez button)
Close
ClOSE FASTER (aka ugh Steve from Accounting is coming cmon hurry up and close the dooooor)
@scottjenson The braille text is on upper and lower row the same, so hopefully the same function.
@scottjenson Clearly designed by a dentist. "Open" and "Open WIDE" are two different things :P
@scottjenson afaik elevator building companies offer standard panels with slots for buttons. Icons can be picked from an icon set.
What I have not found out is who typically picks the buttons and icons (I actually wrote a few companies, no replies)
@simulo My guess would be the installer makes the decisions. No one else could really be bothered. But given the limited domain, you'd think they'd have a better understanding of their choices.
@scottjenson
No, it is not a close, as in close the door, button, it is a close, as in someone is close, button.
@scottjenson If only you could read braille.
@scottjenson 4 elevators in a row at my workplace. Spot the difference between elevator 2 and elevator 3.
@frauxirah @scottjenson real question: does the button in the same position do the same thing (ie, cap swapped), or did they actually wire them differently?
@octothorpe @scottjenson They wired them differently. The button does what it says. It's just bad to not always be in the same position in every elevator.
@frauxirah @scottjenson oh totally! I was just wondering if it was a cosmetic problem.
@frauxirah @scottjenson k thats just poor MFG or installation quality. There's no way that panel was designed that way.
@tezoatlipoca @frauxirah Well, I'd argue that's EXACTLY how the panel was designed. But I think we're likely talking about different things. My take is that the panel was designed ambiguously, so while the "style guide" likely preferred a specific placement, as the buttons were so flexible, this type of error (by a negligent installer) was so easy to do.
There are a range of 'nudges' that could have been designed into that panel to help prevent this.
@scottjenson @tezoatlipoca Even if it's just bad installtion quality, the end result for users is the same, bad UX.
@scottjenson It looks like the braille label is the same in both cases... It's so weird...
@scottjenson Had that link bookmarked with more “fun” examples: https://www2.isye.gatech.edu/~jjb/misc/elevators/elevators.html
@nclm Oooooh, that is a lovely post! Thanks for sharing