Bad bad elevator buttons
Hesitation is the bane of interaction design. Whenever someone is interacting with technology and they stop, puzzled, confused, uh, unsure what to do next, something is wrong. Their flow has been foiled because the interaction did not match their expectations. But invariably, the person feels stupid, thinking it’s their fault. Nope, it’s the buttonmaker’s fault.
This hesitation is even more severe when an interaction that hasn’t changed in decades is abruptly different. Like simply using an elevator.
Easy, right? Approach the door, push the Up or Down button, wait for the door, walk in, push the button to select your floor, avoid all eye contact with your fellow riders, wait for the door to open on your floor, walk on to your destination.
But when you mess with this interaction that’s ingrained in our elevator muscle memory, it’s really jarring. For example, there is a building here in Portland that turns this on its head.
You have to select your floor before boarding. Then when you’re inside, no floor buttons. I’ve been on this elevator dozens of times because one of our clients is in the building, but it still throws me off every single time.
And ironically, while this post is in draft mode, Julia Angwin at the Wall Street Journal publishes a story on the exact same topic, and it’s luckily redistributed by the Northwest Florida Daily News.
These new buttonless lifts, known as “destination elevators”, are springing up in new buildings all over the world, promising to speed rides and reduce waiting time. The Swiss company Schindler Group has installed nearly 3,000 destination elevators, including about 600 in the U.S…
The first U.S. installation occurred at the Ameritech building in Indianapolis. When the new elevators arrived, the building hired mimes to show tenants how to use them…
Mimes! I guess they had to mime getting into the box instead of trying to escape from a box.
Many elevator riders are finding it hard to adjust to the new technology. Just as riders in the 1950s complained at first about the disappearance of human elevator operators, some riders today are uncomfortable ceding control of their ride to a computer. First-timers are the most confused, often hopping into an open elevator and then realizing as the doors shut in front of them that there are no buttons to press.
Completely true. Here’s what happens. As you approach the bank of elevators, you first have to push the buttons to enter your desired floor.
When you do, you are directed to wait by a specific elevator door.
Sounds easy, but because it’s such an assumed interaction, you have to relearn it.
Rolling out a new destination elevator often requires educating riders about how to use it. Schindler says clients often hand out brochures and hold training sessions in their lobbies.
Imagine if keyholes were all of a sudden horizontal instead of vertical. Because your muscle memory is so deep, it would take you a while to adjust.
The real jarring moment is when you enter the car. No floor buttons. The first time you experience this is amazing. You probably entered the car with somebody else, unaware of the system. The doors close. You reach over to… nothing. The person next to you smirks and asks, “first time here?” Incredibly humbling to learn that you don’t know how to use the elevator. Hypothetically of course. Yeah, it happened to a friend of mine…
So why do this at all?
But the modern world’s relentless desire for speed is trumping the objections. Schindler Group says its elevators can reduce the time of the average journey by about 30 percent. Grouping riders by floor limits the number of stops each elevator needs to make and thus makes more elevators available at any given moment.
We’re building taller buildings, tall enough with enough people and floors to alter the system dynamics of elevator cars. This requires novel solutions. Rethinking the standard interaction makes sense. Currently, the rider has to make two decisions/interactions. 1. Up or Down? Push the right button. 2. Which floor? Push the right button. Shortening this to one decision helps the elevator software budget cars better, but we’re still monkeys of habit. We’ll learn, but like any other adjustment, there will be some awkward hesitation.
For your reward for sticking around so long, here’s one of my favorite buttons.
