3 ms·

Not 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

by dublin 5y ago

Not 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 ago
  I 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 ago
He 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.

by dublin 5y ago

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 ago
I 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 ago

He 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.