Silly user.

This red switch used to be a great feature of the elevator in my condo building. You used to be able to flip it to “Stop” once the doors were open, and it would hold the elevator stopped and the doors open until you flipped it back to “Run.” I used this switch a lot. Not every day, or even every week, but probably once a month I have a big batch of groceries or some other reason to make multiple trips in and out of the elevator doors before my loading or unloading is complete. I used to witness my neighbors using it frequently, too.

I say “used to” because about a week ago the behavior of the switch suddenly changed. Now suddenly, since its last maintenance, when you flip the switch to “Stop” the elevator alarm starts ringing, and rings constantly until you flip it back to “Run.” It never behaved like that before in the six years I’ve lived here, so I was very surprised the first time the deafening alarm kicked in.

Our elevator broke down yesterday, so I took the opportunity to email a request to the repair man to change the switch back to its old behavior. I thought it must be a mix-up, or maybe an optional configuration. After all, being able to hold the elevator doors open is very useful, but not if you’re freaking out everyone in the building with the alarm.

This morning when I got in the freshly repaired elevator, I found the repairman had left me a note.

An admonishing note that clearly read, “Silly user. The way you were using the switch was not what the engineers or designers intended. Furthermore, your imagined need for this feature is invalid.”

Ok, I might have paraphrased a little. But the note made me pretty annoyed. First of all, nowhere on the switch does it say “Emergency.” Second of all, the technician (or whoever makes the repair guidelines) CLEARLY thinks they know all of the valid use cases of elevator door operation, and just as clearly, they are wrong. In a residential elevator there are many scenarios beyond “loading and unloading of passengers.”

Everyone in the building used that switch regularly because there was a real need for it. A single person transporting twelve bags of groceries to their unit can’t also be holding down the “door open” button. Not to mention the electricity savings of not opening and closing the elevator door between schleps, or having someone call the elevator to another floor while your back is turned and having to call it back just to retrieve the rest of your stuff. I remember when we moved in we used the switch to hold the doors open while we crammed as much stuff into the elevator as would fit for each trip upstairs.

But enough about my elevator. This experience, especially the condescending tone of the note, immediately reminded me of discussions with coworkers or clients who bemoaned the stupidity of their users. It also reminded me of the old stories about computer warranty calls for the broken “cup holders” on PCs, usually told with chuckles and shaking heads. But if we design something that looks and acts (or almost acts) like a feature users would like to have, and that thing somehow breaks when they use it that way, have the users done something dumb or have we?

I let this elevator experience be another good lesson to me that NO ONE knows the users’ needs, perspective, and situation better than the users themselves. And if I ever notice the urge to shake my head and say, “Silly user,” it probably means I’m doing something silly, and I just need to get to know my user a little better.

Tagged as: elevator, spotted