usability matters™

Too often I have observed visitors struggle with the elevator panel in our building. After a few seconds of watching them push a button, the light not staying on, pushing it again, them looking around confused and flustered I jump in and say: “You have to push 2R to get to the 2nd floor”.

The confusion continues…
They freeze and stare in dismay…
I push the button for them…
The elevator takes off…
… and then I point to the sign in the elevator hoping that it will clarify the issue.
(I don’t think it does, but the visitor gets to the floor they need to, and hopefully they’ll remember how to get there again next time.)

So what’s the problem?

Our elevator has two doors – front and rear – (hence the ‘R’ in 2R, 3R, etc.). That’s not really the problem. But it doesn’t make things easier either. Here are the main issues:

• Expectation Typically the rear doors of elevators are used by people who live or work in a building. Rear doors are often ‘service entry’s’ (i.e. used by custodians, security guards, and all those people that make the building function), and they lead to storage spaces or garages. The everyday person rarely uses the rear door of an elevator, especially if they are a new visitor to a building.Interestingly enough, a colleague mentioned a situation where someone entered the elevator from the rear door, and unsuccessfully tried to keep the door open by pushing the ‘front-door open’ button. The problem was that it was actually the rear door that they wanted to keep open. Apparently they were very confused about which door was the rear door and which was the front door, possibly because their most frequently used door of entry, in their mind, was their ‘front door’.

• Labeling When a visitor searches through the building directory for an office’s room number, they find a number ranging from 100 – 500. There are no ‘R’s involved. For example, Theatre Ontario’s number is 210. Under usual circumstances that would mean that by pushing the ‘2’ in the elevator, you would get to the correct level and find suite 210. Unfortunately in our building, they must press ’2R’, leading to many confused and frustrated individuals.Sadly, that’s nothing compared to what happens when you are trying to find a room in the 100’s. There is no ‘1’ button. You have to push ‘GR’ to get to the 100’s. (What??).

• Organization The elevator panel does not help matters either. In the above example, even if the visitor realizes that the 2 doesn’t work and that they need to push ‘2R’, it will still take them a while to find the ‘2R’ button because it is not directly next to the ‘2’ button.

• Signage In order to accommodate for all this, the building managers have placed a sign in the elevator, hoping that this will ease some of the confusion. Unfortunately the sign adds to the problem. It is difficult to scan, has too many words and the most important pieces are not highlighted in a way that stands out immediately.

So what’s the solution?
Get a new elevator panel!

If that’s not possible, then here are some other things that may help in the mean time:

• Cover up/remove the buttons & respective labels that no longer function (i.e. : 2, 3, 5R)
• Cover up the ‘R’s in the remaining, functioning levels.
• Put a little label next to ‘GR’ indicating that it is ‘1’.
• Remove the current paper sign and instead place a sign next to the 4 for ‘Center for Social Innovation’.

Ok, so I admit it’s not the prettiest panel, but I think it might help minimize all the confusion and frustration.