Designing the bleedin’ obvious
How hard can it be to design something as simple as lift control panel.
The specifications are as follows: buttons for eight floors, hold door open, door close, alarm and key slot for manual override.
I’m sure that most people would logically take advantage of the users mental model of the way lifts work – i.e. up and down and posiiton the button for the eighth floor on the top and the button for the ground floor at the bottom. That is bleedin’ obvious isn’t it? (I believe that 90% of user centred design is the bleedin’ obvious). Sadly, some people don’t get the bleedin’ obvious and all too often they design things that we use every day. Like whoever designed this lift control panel. Vertically positioned buttons with the most frequently used button [ground floor] hidden in the middle of the bottom row of buttons. I have to think to find it.
(I also have to think “how sad am I” to notice such a thing, take a photo and blog about it. S’pose that is why the world needs interaction designers, to state the bleedin’ obvious.)
