In the image below Can you figure which one is the door?
and how to open this door? Push? Pull? Slide?
Entering the door of your office is the first th
ing most of the working class does before they start off and reach their desk for work.
Sounds simple ?
Recently i went to a Networking event at a posh corporate park in Bombay and had a great time. But B
eing the “paying attention to the details” kind of person that i am i figured that this entry door nothing
less than an algebraic equation which i might not have been taught in school.
So many of our doors are designed in a way that send confusing signals. Look at the doors in malls, Washrooms, Coffee Shops, Corporate offices etc.
I’m so sure we have all faced this one situation where we are pushing a door and someone at the opposite ends gets hit on the nose.
And worse is when we are using the revolving doors. There is a 100% possibility of you fumbling with your own-self and feel dis-balanced.
We are habituated instinctively to pull doors that have handles and push doors that are flat or have no handles, so whenever a door does not fit in this regular realm of design, a sign or symbol of help is required. But then again it is not a guarantee that the door will be used as desired by the designer.
What may seem like a clever or minimal design soon seems as a design failure. I very often say “Simple and Minimal does not mean Kill the Utility or Make it Non-User Friendly”
Sometimes we might see handwritten arrows or signs or text indicating direction or action that needs to be taken.
For Eg: Toilet out of order! Yes that’s the sign i mostly see around
At times the stickers are also insufficient to override what those handles are saying.
And sometimes signs alone cannot act as a solution in itself and hence there still must be some way of knowing what action and where it is to be done. Mostly a single word labels fail to signify or rather say build that intuition in a user to take action
How many of us subconsciously land up pushing the door when it’s written Pull?
Words can be ambiguous when it comes to universal function and understanding. Hence we see Road signs use graphic illustrations. But words and graphics are together are understood much better.
“Doors do not need an instruction manual they should simply be “KISS” – Keep it Simple and Stupid”
And finally when you figure the way the product or item works user has a sense of achievement!
Cheers
