I’m not sure why elevators seem to be magnets for confusing interfaces (although I probably could take some guesses). To add another example to the list, my friend Scott recently sent me this picture:

How great is that button? Apparently it was on a wall all by itself, with nothing at all to indicate what happens when it is pushed. It reminds me of something from a kids’ fantasy novel—a magical, solitary button tempting you with unknown consequences.

Does it call the fire department? Does it ring the alarm? Does it send the elevator to the ground floor and lock it there? All three? Maybe it whisks you back in time or teleports you to a nearby park. Does it matter what it does? Perhaps all you truly need to know is when to press it.

I personally think it would be helpful to know what it does, in case that behavior might be useful in some circumstance other than a fire. For example, is it safe to press the fire button if there’s an earthquake? But maybe it’s just that my curiosity has gotten the best of me. If I had been in that elevator I would have been severely tempted to push that button JUST to find out what it does.

What do you think—is it fine to display only when to use the button, or should they also let people know what it does?

Perhaps it only goes down, Alice in Wonderland style.

This is the view through the doorway after the Oakland airport security screening. I encountered it while traveling this week and it gave me a chuckle. Only after I walked past the sign, halfway to the far escalator and then turned left, could I finally see an actual elevator, tucked underneath and between flanking staircases. So I guess the sign is there to reassure travelers that, yes, there will be an elevator somewhere soon.

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.

Let’s see… Phones, calculators, computers, and almost every other number input device have THREE numbers to a row. This machine has FIVE snacks to a row, and they are numbered by the row, column grid. So what are the designers of this vending machine to do but put their number buttons FOUR to a row, of course!

This is the vending machine in my office. Entering the correct number for the snack you want requires an astonishing amount of mental processing. And when the snacks were free, there were always at least two unwanted items hanging out in the bin below.

How many of those cards in your wallet are loyalty cards? You know, the ones that give you special coupons at a specific store, or when they’re punched ten times get you a freebie. Probably quite a few, right? Most of us have one or two credit cards, a bank card, an ID, and the REST of those cards bulking up your wallet are loyalty cards of some kind.

I recently spotted a great hack in practice at a local coffee-house (the Cow’s End in Venice) that gets around that problem. The customers simply stash their loyalty cards (the punch-for-a-freebie kind) in different nooks and crannies all around the shop. This obviously requires the proprietors’ consent, and each customer is responsible for remembering where they put their card, but it usually results in a great experience.

Picking a special place to stash my card, remembering that spot, and finding it there when I need it gives me a special connection with the physical space and builds my trust in the business. All of those cards peeking out of corners is a visual manifestation of the large coffee-house community. I also appreciate the convenience of not having to worry about remembering to bring my card with me. I’ve seen people squeal with glee when they find their card after a year away.

This obviously only works for single-location stores with relatively small clientele. It wouldn’t work well for Walmart, or for Starbucks. But for a little coffee-house trying to use it’s local community loyalty to COMPETE with Starbucks, it seems perfect.

Perhaps this Noah’s Bagels is built on a singularity in space-time wherein two different groups of people can occupy one space without discomfort or confusion.

I see this place almost every day and am both amused by the poor setup and impressed by the lengths the owners of the dumpster have gone to in order to clarify who should have access to it.

The dumpster is accessed by this driveway, which is the driveway that belongs to the building on the right (behind the van). The dumpster, however belongs to the building on the left (past the sedan).

The fencing was supposed to keep the dumpter more secure, I think, and separate it from the cars in the parking lot in which it technically lives, but it only reinforces the impression that it is actually a part of the driveway.

This is some serious instructional/error messaging. I bet they wouldn’t need it if they were able to fix the underlying design issue.