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Norman doors are everywhere (2016) [video]
- permo-w 5y agoI’m sorry but if you get the same door wrong more than once, it’s your fault
- mtwittman 5y agoThe handle/touchpoint is not full user journey, let's pull back and explore the approach, the threshold navigation, the bio-mechanical motion & timing — the bigger picture: "How to open a door - Finnish instructional video from 1979"[0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wof0xPUmW38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wof0xPUmW38
- djohnston 5y agoIt's funny that he got his start in design after being frustrated with UK appliances. As a recent UK immigrant I concur that the UK has the strangest and least intuitive designs for everything from doors (weird button off on the wall to unlock from the inside) to plumbing and heating appliances that I've seen anywhere. I do like the outlet switches though :D.
- btbuildem 5y agoThose two-faucet sinks are just the absolute worst.
- mavhc 5y agoDoors with a button off to the side to unlock? Are these ones with fobs to open from the other side? What's up with the plumbing and heating?
- Maxburn 5y agoGenerally security doors. Button or motion sensor on the inside to unlock it and exit. Probably a keycard on the other side to get in.
- jozvolskyef 5y ago> Doors with a button off to the side to unlock? It is often power assisted doors that have a button on the side. The button can be difficult to notice, among other reasons because it is low in order to be reachable by wheelchair users.
- mavhc 5y agoBut is this a typically British thing?
- quintushoratius 5y ago> What's up with the plumbing and heating? Not sure if this is what GP meant, but Britain has a history of using separate taps for hot and cold water, rather than a single tap that mixes hot and cold to give you a range of temperatures. Fine if you're filling a basin, not very good for anything else.
- falcolas 5y agoThe company I worked for had these in their London office. Bonus inaccessibility points - the button was located below the fire alarm button, out of easy reach for 6' folks. Predicting the outcome of this is trivially easy.
- noneeeed 5y agoI hate that layout, it is far too common. I've lost count of the number of times where I've almost pushed the fire alarm point.
- noneeeed 5y agoFor the interior unlocking button, how are these implemented where you've come from? I assume you are referring to security doors with fob entry on the outside and massive magnets at the top that hold the doors locked?
- mcpherrinm 5y agoThere are three ways: either an electromagnet holding the door closed directly, or an electronic strike plate that allows the door latch out, or the latch on the door itself is electronic. My apartment has the electromagnet directly holding the door, which I think is because it’s a double door, but I think for single doors, the electronic strike plate is the most common.
- FabHK 5y agoHaving said that, I find those round door knobs (as prevalent in the US) terrible though: a) hard to operate when you carry something or have dirty/wet/greasy hands, as you have to hold it tight and twist. a') hard to operate for people with arthritis, children, etc. a'') knobs seem optimised to spread germs as efficiently as possible. A door handle/lever (like in Europe) you can push open with your elbow, or the back of the hand, or anything really. b) with the design that uses a push button to lock, you cannot check whether the door is actually locked, because attempting to do so is exactly what unlocks the door. With a separate locking mechanism, you can lock and then confirm that the door is locked. But, yeah, UK appliances are remarkably bad (or, at least, were, when I was there decades ago).
- cratermoon 5y agoI'm seeing fewer round doorknobs in public buildings and multifamily housing in the US because of codes and standards around accessibility.
- FabHK 5y agoOh, nice. (Last time I was in the US for an extended period, G. W. Bush was president.)
- _carbyau_ 5y agoEverything you say is correct. And yet there are still reasons to use round knob door handles at least some of the time. I have zero experience on how big a deal this really is but someone seems to think so: https://www.doorstuff.co.uk/blog/canadian-bears-vs-door-handles/ https://www.doorstuff.co.uk/blog/canadian-bears-vs-door-hand...
- FabHK 5y agoHa, fair enough. If bears or velociraptors are a factor, stick with door knobs by all means :-)
- jet_32951 5y agoCan confirm, codes in several California counties forbid lever-type handles on exterior doors because bears learned to open them. However, bears being adaptable, some of them have learned to operate round doorknobs too: https://www.upliftingtoday.com/2018/12/black-bear-makes-surprise-office-visit-to-california-highway-patrol-department/ https://www.upliftingtoday.com/2018/12/black-bear-makes-surp...
- mcphage 5y agoThe Design of Everyday Things is a great book, but I feel a little bad that his name got attached to things that violate everything he pushed for :-)
- psychomugs 5y ago> pushed :)
- lostcolony 5y agoHe also was pulling for better design. Funny how English treats both pushing and pulling as near synonyms for advocating for.
- heurisko 5y ago> pulling for better design. That doesn't sound idiomatic to me, as someone in the UK.
- lostcolony 5y ago"I'm pulling for (person)!" means I'm supporting them, I'm hoping succeed, etc. https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/197857/origin-of-phrase-pulling-for-you https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/197857/origin-of... It's less common outside of a person, certainly, but I've heard it in the context of other things, i.e., "I'm pulling for the home team!". While I'm not sure I've heard it in the context of an ideal, I have in the context of a debate, though that, like the other uses, still involves people and a kind of competition (i.e., "I'm pulling for the affirmative"), which aligns it pretty well with design decisions.
- heurisko 5y agoI can infer what it means, however only the following sound idiomatic to me as an English (UK) speaker. "I'm pushing for better design". "I'm rooting for the home team."
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y agoApparently no one in modern UX design got the memo that Norman Doors are actually a bad thing.
- Ashanmaril 5y agoWell they probably know, but people on the business side figure out that if you implement a door that's too confusing to operate and can keep people stuck inside your building where you show them more ads, it's better to use the bad door.
- tedk-42 5y agoSometimes I scan the top and bottom of a door to see where the holds/fixed mounts are to know if I should push or pull.
- admiral33 5y agoIf you're entering or going deeper into a building: pull. They're designed in this direction for fires so that if one breaks out all doors are push to open. This rule doesn't apply to a private residence.
- gregoriol 5y agoI just failed at a door last weekend at a place I don't know, and when the person working there came to push it open, I thought it was a joke, it clearly looked like a pull!
- hcktntng 5y agoA weird thing I noticed: software developers complain about these doors a lot more than other people. I worked in a big office building with lots of kinds of people, and on the internal chat devs would always complain about a couple of these doors. They would also regularly complain about a few other things, which while indeed being real, they would be considered minor by other people, one example - not being able to see from a distance if an elevator is busy, with the suggestion of placing elevator availability lights throughout the floor (like plane toilet lights) I wonder what's the cause, is it attention to detail, being a bit further on the spectrum, too much free time so you hang out on internal chat, ...
- NikolaNovak 5y agoBeen wondering that all my life. With my "software/geeky" friends we can have these discussions for hours; with my "non-software/geeky" friends... 0.5 seconds before being labelled as grouchy old geezer who should just let it go :-> I think partially it's analytical minds trying to / used to optimizing; but the more self-flagellating part of me also worries if it's me/geeks or "them"/everybody-else who are bad at filtering/prioritizing :P
- psychomugs 5y agoAs socially inept as we're stereotyped to be, we arguably have more user empathy than the average non-builder/non-engineer, considering how easy it is to build things.
- mikestew 5y agoIt's a thought straight from my butthole, but The Design of Everyday Things is a book recommended amongst this crowd, and one of the early chapters of that book goes on about doors. Once you've seen it, blah, blah, blah. Or perhaps the book didn't make any difference other than to validate what many had already noticed.
- whizzter 5y agoAfaik the book isn't THAT known among regular software devs (otherwise we'd have far less shitty UI's). The doors in the book is mostly an obvious tool used in the book to get people into the right mindset to then learn about the other issues the book presents.
- warglebargle 5y agothe first door in their video is built that way because you can choose which way it opens… a lot of poor ux is a cost cutting effort. It can be frustrating to find building fixtures that exist between lazy low-end and overthought high-end. Maybe because of how the middle class has been hollowed out?
- btbuildem 5y agoIt would have been cheaper to omit the bar on the push side, and just cap / cover the attachment points.
- lostcolony 5y agoSure...but it would cost less in materials, packing space, and machining, to replace a handle with a plate. Yes, standardizing both sides to be the same may offset that, but we're talking negligible amounts at that point. You'd actually save a measurable amount on an interior door if you went with metal or hollow core.
- warglebargle 5y agoit’s a race to the bottom, no one thinks about the door usability so the cheap glass one wins (they might even eschew a push plate because of potential fingerprints on the glass) - when you’re building cookie cutter offices no one cares about how the door works. The primary concerns are appearance and cost.
- toomanyrichies 5y agoReminds me of a quote by a guy named Gordon Bethune, the former CEO of Continental Airlines: "You can make a pizza so cheap that no one wants to eat it."
- alister 5y agoI'm sure everyone has experienced double doors at the front of a business in which one of the two doors is locked. A relative of mine used to be the director of franchising of a restaurant chain and he noticed that literally hundreds of people would try to open the wrong side of the door every day in every restaurant where this happened. When he asked store managers or the employees about this, he would get evasive or invented answers: it keeps the heat in on cold days (or keeps heat out in air-conditioned locations) or that the second door wasn't working. Hardly anyone wanted to admit the real reason, which turned out to be as silly as you can imagine. The first employee of the morning that came to open up the restaurant opened one side of the double door. Flipping up the hasp that frees the second door is a bit of a chore, so he or she wouldn't bother. And nobody else bothered as well. The head office had to put a requirement in the operations manual that franchisees must unlock both sides of the double door when the restaurant is open for business. That mostly solved it. EDIT: Of course a better solution would be a mechanical mechanism that frees both sides of the door simultaneously when you unlock it.
- duncanawoods 5y agoUnlocked double doors create their own hazard. There is the tendency to bust through them saloon style, partly out of hedging your bet for which one is unlocked, only to lay a Loony Tunes like booby trap for anyone following behind you: https://imgur.com/gallery/20YvUX1 https://imgur.com/gallery/20YvUX1
- barbarbar 5y agoIt is actually a horrible video. Poor boy. But of course it shows the saloon door problem.
- bartread 5y agoIn fairness though, most double doors aren't spring loaded like those idiotic saloon doors are so wouldn't hit people in the face in quite such violent fashion.
- chrisdhoover 5y ago
- NikolaNovak 5y ago... did this switch to what it's pointing? I could swear that when I visited/commented an hour ago, it was pointing to an article: https://uxdesign.cc/intro-to-ux-the-norman-door-61f8120b6086 https://uxdesign.cc/intro-to-ux-the-norman-door-61f8120b6086
- dang 5y agoPast comments referencing this video: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=yY96hTb8WgI&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- Oarch 5y agoI read the title and assumed this was about doors from the 1100s (in case anyone's wondering, it's not).
- jimmies 5y agoThere are a lot of annoying stuff about the computer interface nowadays. But in terms of connectors, there are a lot of good stuff we take for granted now. Like how intuitive and fool-proof the connectors are. So a couple of days ago, I have just fried all three hard drives with the backup of my data, at the same time. They were installed in a new caddy I bought with a common molex receptor for power. There molex receptor has a giant sticker blocking it saying you will fry your drives if you connect to the molex receptor in reverse. I got the pinouts right, tested, it worked. Then, I had to bring the caddy to under my desk. I was scooting under the desk and couldn't see very well. I fumbled and put the cable on reverse, it didn't go in. However, the molex connector got just enough contact to fry the drives. What I'm trying to say is if it was the USB-A connector or the sata power connector, the issue wouldn't have happened because the pins are recessed. It wouldn't have made contact even when I tried to plug in reverse. I just assumed the molex worked the same way and was wrong. The situation is even better with usb-c now, it's not that you can't plug in it wrong, there is no wrong way to plug the cable. It doesn't matter what the voltage is, the chip will negotiate the power. USB succeeded for a reason, and I'm glad that it did.
- adolph 5y ago> it's not that you can't plug in it wrong, there is no wrong way to plug the cable Red text warning: NEVER USE A CHEAP CABLE TO CHARGE YOUR COMPUTER NEVER USE A 3A USB C CABLE TO POWER A LAPTOP OR MONITOR https://learn.adafruit.com/understanding-usb-type-c-cable-types-pitfalls-and-more/cable-types-and-differences https://learn.adafruit.com/understanding-usb-type-c-cable-ty...
- zlsa 5y agoCompliant USB-C cables might not always work at full speed (or at all, on some devices that need more power to operate), but they will never be a safety hazard. The only possible safety hazard with USB-C charging is a noncompliant cable with an E-markers that explicitly claims to support 5A charging, while the wires are sized for lower current (which would be a conscious decision made by the manufacturer to build a serious fire hazard.) (Of course, cables and connectors can be defective, and there's always the risk of this. But the USB-IF has spent a lot of time making sure compliant devices can never be configured in a dangerous way. It's up to the manufacturers to only build devices and cables that comply with the specifications. Unfortunately, this is less common than you would think. Amazon happily sells horribly non-compliant dongles and cables that easily have the potential to damage electronics or start fires.)
- adolph 5y agoNot this: The term Norman architecture is used to categorise styles of Romanesque architecture developed by the Normans in the various lands under their dominion or influence in the 11th and 12th centuries. In particular the term is traditionally used for English Romanesque architecture. The Normans introduced large numbers of castles and fortifications including Norman keeps, and at the same time monasteries, abbeys, churches and cathedrals, in a style characterised by the usual Romanesque rounded arches (particularly over windows and doorways) and especially massive proportions compared to other regional variations of the style. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_architecture This: Donald Arthur Norman (born December 25, 1935)[2][3] is an American researcher, professor, and author. Norman is the director of The Design Lab at University of California, San Diego.[4] He is best known for his books on design, especially The Design of Everyday Things. He is widely regarded for his expertise in the fields of design, usability engineering, and cognitive science. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Norman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Norman
- beardyw 5y agoThat's what I thought. I'm looking forward to Saxon doors.
- Hallucinaut 5y agoThanks. This answered what I needed to know whilst sticking within the safe confines of HN
- emmelaich 5y agoThat helped but also confused me more. Turns out that Norman doors are the opposite of Don Norman doors. Much in the way that Orwellian means totalitarian.
- prvc 5y agoThanks. Terrible choice of name for this phenomenon. Maybe we should/ shouldn't call such a thing, "a Norman Name".
- iancmceachern 5y agoAlways love when this pops up. I always think of it when I use a credit card and the POS device says "do not remove card" and then "remove card". I think it would be much clearer to simply say "insert card" or "leave card inserted" and "remove card" and not rely on the small, hard to read and understand modifier of "not".
- JamilD 5y agoI've noticed this in product design a lot; designers/programmers assume way more attention from the user than is typical. Most of the time, I don't read instructions, I just do what's "intuitive". Designing with the assumption of minimal attention / laziness is so important.
- FabHK 5y agoOr just "Insert" - "Wait" - "Remove"
- pfranz 5y agoI'm not sure of the name for what you're talking about, but the most prominent example I've heard is from people who work with kids (teachers, life guards, etc). Instead of saying, "don't run!" you say, "walk" for the reasons you mentioned. I frigg'n hate those credit card machines that beep and blink "do not remove card" using the same font and sound as the other messages.
- tdeck 5y agoThis very much reminds me of how Mac OS applications use "Don't save" to confirm exiting, but some Linux office applications use "Don't close" to cancel exiting in the same type of confirmation dialog. I've had the problem where I try to close something, reflexively hit "don't close", and complete that loop a couple of times before my brain catches up.
- allenu 5y agoSimilarly, I remember when those card readers would beep loudly at you when it was time to remove the card. "EEP EEP EEP!" they'd go, like something went horribly wrong, but when you'd look at the screen it would just tell you the transaction was complete and to remove your card. I think the manufacturers eventually realized what a poor choice of sound effect it was and eventually changed it.
- dirtyid 5y agoWonder if prevalence rate of bad designs is correlated to increased access to design. Budget projects don't mess around with funky yet ambiguous fixtures.
- re-al 5y agoNot doors, but there are many anti-patterns are intentional - they are there by design! Eg, "Accept All" cookies - always there. "Reject All"? No. Click preferences, scroll to the bottom, past all the minimised options that hopefully are not selected, then choose the ambiguously named "Confirm my choices" (when I haven't made any choices). This stuff is on purpose! Its there to make you lose the will to live, and just accept whatever crap they have to offer. Like phoning your broadband or energy supplier. Or being able to swap out your phone battery. Or have a machine auto-call or text you to harass you, if you are 1 day late on a payment. The point is that there is a cash value to many of these 'problems' even if they can be easily engineered away. Its the weaponisation of irritation and hassle, and its ubiquitous in modern living. Where this ends up, is that we are forced to accept, accept, accept. Its not a great mental state to be in - its the mentality of the prisoner. One cannot help be far less proactive in a modern society - you cannot take things in hand - to get anything done needs to escalated up the ladder. We are being trained to be timid acceptance lambs. :)
- baby 5y agoYou’re talking about dark patterns (specifically the path of least resistance pattern), when the post is about bad design.
- re-al 5y agoMany dark pattern designers, would claim 'bad design' as the excuse. Its hard to read intent, and hard not to suspect malicious intent when there is a cash value on the upside of the 'bad design'. I have another one - when you pay cash at a machine, and it does not give you the best change, but gives you the heaviest change. Oh and 4-way traffic management guaranteed to cause a huge traffic jam in the name of health and safety, when cars and drivers (and pedestrians) would better manage the road themselves without any assistance. (I suspect the traffic management is training for us to get used to degrading of the roads, so that 'self-driving' cars are able to navigate diversions cos of the traffic lights.)
- quintushoratius 5y ago
- baby 5y ago* usb 2 * alarm clocks with just a big snooze button. Actually even the iphone alarm confused me every time (how do I stop it?) * restaurants or bars that don’t have a clear indication that you have to either wait or seat yourself * lights that have a wheel thing as the switch. You never know in which direction to turn. * microwaves that don’t have a start button * elevators with letter floors and a floor numbered 1 (is it the ground floor?) * washing machines and dish washers that don’t really have a good way to tell you that you did start it and you don’t have to press the button again * coffee machines that don’t give you a good way to know if the pod you have in there has been used already or not.
- permo-w 5y ago* 9 times out of ten the dark squares go upwards * agree with this one * agree * clockwise is pretty much always on * agree. microwave (and shower) design has always bewildered me. it really can’t be this hard, can it? * never come across this * in my, admittedly limited, experience, most dishwashers start making a gurgling noise when you turn them on, and the door locks up * that sounds more like a cost/engineering problem than a design one
- baby 5y agoOh my, showers or sink that don’t clearly indicate which side is the warm side, or worse how to switch which stream to use. Elevators and floors become a pain once you start travelling (in france the first floor is not the ground floor)
- allenu 5y ago> * microwaves that don’t have a start button As far as I'm concerned, a microwave with an "Add 30 seconds" and a "Stop" button has everything I need.
- baby 5y agoI’ve stared at some microwaves for a while, being able to _add_ time, but not start it
- erdos4d 5y agoMy favorite bad design is the bathroom light switch in northern Europe. Most are located in the hall outside the bathroom, because why should the person in the bathroom control the light in the bathroom, right? I've asked a lot of Scandinavians about this and whether that makes any sense, and I always get a sheepish "Well, perhaps not...".
- gregallan 5y agoThis is also really common in New England in the US. I have no idea why, though.
- cratermoon 5y agoThe house I grew up in had a switch like that on just one of the bathrooms, the tiny one. From everything I have been able to gather, it had to do with electrical codes and requirements that switches had to be a certain distance from water. Take that with a grain of salt because this bathroom also had the light fixture over the sink with a socket for a razor or hair dryer plug, and it seems way more hazardous to me.
- vincebowdren 5y agoIt's to prevent people with wet hands from electrocuting themselves. In the UK it's required by law (building regulations BS 7671), that electrical switches have to be either outside the bathroom or specially water-protected.
- diogenescynic 5y agoHow realistic of a threat is that? I've never heard of that occurring in the US where there's a light switch in most bathrooms--and if the news could make fear out of it they would.
- jrace 5y agoDepends on the size of the bathroom (at least in Canada) - you must not be able to reach the switch and the water source at the same time. Or use a GFCI protected switch.
- dublin 5y agoNot once in the story, does Don Norman or any of the people involved recognize a key fact they ALREADY know, even if they don't know they know it: By intuition, you'll first try to PUSH on a door with a HORIZONTAL bar or handle (or push-plate, of course), and PULL on a door with a VERTICAL handle. This is why the "shit door" at Vox's office is so frustrating - it's a long vertical handle that you have to push! If you have to put a sign on it, like Vox did, the design was screwed up in the first place.
- toomanyrichies 5y ago> By intuition, you'll first try to PUSH on a door with a HORIZONTAL bar or handle... I'm curious why you say this. My intuition when seeing a door with any handle (vertical or horizontal) would be to pull, since either style has the affordance of pullability. You don't need a handle at all if the door is intended to be pushed, you just need a push plate (if that), since a flat surface has the affordance of pushability.
- MarkLowenstein 5y agoI get the same feeling as dublin. Theory: vertical is one-handed, definitely never two. Pushing is therefore weak. And to push it means you're going to increasingly wedge your own hand in between the handle and door as you go. Ouch! Horizontal: two hands is invited and you know viscerally that you're stronger that way so you don't even consider using one. Pulling this backwards would be strange since you'd have to walk yourself backwards even though you want to go forward. Plus you can't go straight backwards or you'd have to let go with one hand, so you'd have to go at an arc and end up having to run around the door you just pulled out to go through. I think our bodies understand those things subconsciously in about 300 ms.
- svachalek 5y agoHe does mention his ideal door has a plate on it (apparently vertical on one side) and no handle at all, and second best is an asymmetric horizontal bar that indicates which side has to be pushed. It's kind of astonishing actually, how little thought this requires to be obvious and yet how frequently it's violated. Lately I'm seeing lots of things, faucets, toilets, light switches, etc. that also replace time tested designs with pure mystery, apparently for the sake of looking cool.
- cratermoon 5y agoTwo things I noted 1. The terrible doors get "fixed" with exactly the wrong patch. 2. Norman worked for Apple but the video specifically references tapping/double tapping and trackpads, illustrated by is clearly an Apple macbook trackpad. I guess that's less of a hardware problem than it is a software one, but the trackpad is remarkably free of affordances and discoverability on its own.
- svachalek 5y agoI kind of give the trackpad a pass, as it's not all that complex and most people end up using it for hours per day. It's a different case from doors and faucets that might be encountered by tens or hundreds of new people every day, who each only need to use it for a second or two. On the other hand, anyone with children can vouch for how dramatically more intuitive a touch screen is.
- _carbyau_ 5y agoMy 3 yr old knows his touchscreen devices. He will also try to operate the TV the same way, but only when he knows we're driving the HTPC to get him his kids TV show. It is communication, of sorts.
- maxerickson 5y agoAffordances are good, but they can't be the only consideration. Like what is someone that doesn't know how to read and write English going to do with a keyboard? Would pictograms on everything actually be better? Or course not.
- cratermoon 5y agoYou do know that keyboards come in a variety of different languages, right?
- maxerickson 5y agoNo they don't.
- nmstoker 5y agoThis topic deserves mention of Gibson affordances, which predate Norman's work https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordance
- aaron695 5y agoJapanese architect Arakawa and American architect Madeline Gins believed fucking shit up was good for longevity. They designed the Bioscleave House in New York - "Ceilings and entranceways extend across varying directions and heights, either along straightened or curved edges. Similarly, windows and light switches are strewn along the walls at inconsistent heights. Arakawa and Gins firmly believed it was integral for domestic environments to be constructed in layouts that rendered residents with a sense of instability and discomfort. " http://www.reversibledestiny.org/bioscleave-house-lifespan-extending-villa/ http://www.reversibledestiny.org/bioscleave-house-lifespan-e... Always makes me think when I read stories about bad physical design.
- CRConrad 5y agoDo you think of that as a counterpoint to, or an example of bad physical design?
- psim1 5y agoThe main issue I seem to have isn't with push vs. pull but with pushing on the hinge side of the door due to a push bar that looks the same the whole way across.