Ambiguous Doors; Handle Confusion and Affordances
I won’t spend too much time on this one, because Donald Norman covers it pretty well. But a door handle’s physical form, much like any object’s physical form, should communicate how it is to be used – namely, to be pushed, or to be pulled. There are three scenarios in which the door handle problem takes it’s shape. First scenario: The non-handle. Often seen on glass doors in the form of a flat metal panel, usually unlabeled. You’re walking at the door, nervously looking around to gauge how many people are going to silently (or not) publicly mock you when you make the wrong choice. You get to the door, you extend your hand, and, leaving the building, you decide to push. You’re wrong. The door opens in. You shrug it off and walk away, pretending not to be humiliated.
The second scenario: Misuse of handles. In this case, the door has a handle that indicates the opposite of what it does. For example, imagine the above scenario, wherein I am leaving a building, only the door now has a large gold outward-facing handle on it. Confident, now, you grab the handle and pull. The door doesn’t budge, because – you guessed it, the damn thing is a push and opens out. HANDLE MEANS PULL!
The third scenario: Identical Handles. Last, imagine the scenario 2 above, only this time you’re going to think about entering and exiting the building. You enter, pulling the handle toward you (because, as Norman explains, a handle “affords” pulling) as the door swings out. Hours later, after an exhausting job interview, you leave, exiting with a crowd of business people at lunch time. You go for the handle, but it is the exact same as the one on the other side. In the milliseconds allotted to you before you are forced to decide, you relentlessly try to remember how you used the handle before. Was it push or pull? It’s the same on both sides, so is it the reverse? Maybe the doors open both ways? But it’s too late! You’re there, and instincts take over. It’s a handle. It must open toward you. You pull, the door doesn’t budge. The dude behind you totally gives you a flat tire (juvenile term for when the person behind you steps on the back of your shoe, usually due to an unexpected change in pace/distance between the involved parties), and then let’s out a classic New Yorker “ugh, come the fuck on, idiot” sigh (they all sound like that. There are variations, perhaps to be discussed later. All include some expression of annoyance, being in a rush, hating one’s life, and wanting to berate the subject). Embarrassed, you do the unthinkable, you push the damn handle on the door and it opens outward, allowing the steady flow of business drones on their way to Chipotle to continue unobstructed by your idiocy.
The rules are simple. The thing should do what it looks like it does. If it looks like it does nothing, it shouldn’t be there. A push door should not have a handle. A pull door should have a noticeable handle and should not swing both ways (insert pun?). Isn’t it more expensive to pay for a door to have two handles than it is to have one, anyway?? I wonder how, why, and who was responsible for such doorway atrocities every time I encounter the inevitable ambiguous door situation. To add insult to injury, my building’s lobby doors each open in a different direction and both have handles. One’s a push and the other’s a pull. I can never remember which is which, especially when intoxicated or exhausted (roughly 80% of the time). My boyfriend sometimes purposefully walks on the left side of me because he knows I always try to push the right door, which pulls out. He happens to be one of the many humans who accepts the responsibility of learning and remembering this “quirk”, rather than the egregious design flaw that it is. He is certainly not alone.
The second scenario: Misuse of handles. In this case, the door has a handle that indicates the opposite of what it does. For example, imagine the above scenario, wherein I am leaving a building, only the door now has a large gold outward-facing handle on it. Confident, now, you grab the handle and pull. The door doesn’t budge, because – you guessed it, the damn thing is a push and opens out. HANDLE MEANS PULL!
The third scenario: Identical Handles. Last, imagine the scenario 2 above, only this time you’re going to think about entering and exiting the building. You enter, pulling the handle toward you (because, as Norman explains, a handle “affords” pulling) as the door swings out. Hours later, after an exhausting job interview, you leave, exiting with a crowd of business people at lunch time. You go for the handle, but it is the exact same as the one on the other side. In the milliseconds allotted to you before you are forced to decide, you relentlessly try to remember how you used the handle before. Was it push or pull? It’s the same on both sides, so is it the reverse? Maybe the doors open both ways? But it’s too late! You’re there, and instincts take over. It’s a handle. It must open toward you. You pull, the door doesn’t budge. The dude behind you totally gives you a flat tire (juvenile term for when the person behind you steps on the back of your shoe, usually due to an unexpected change in pace/distance between the involved parties), and then let’s out a classic New Yorker “ugh, come the fuck on, idiot” sigh (they all sound like that. There are variations, perhaps to be discussed later. All include some expression of annoyance, being in a rush, hating one’s life, and wanting to berate the subject). Embarrassed, you do the unthinkable, you push the damn handle on the door and it opens outward, allowing the steady flow of business drones on their way to Chipotle to continue unobstructed by your idiocy.
The rules are simple. The thing should do what it looks like it does. If it looks like it does nothing, it shouldn’t be there. A push door should not have a handle. A pull door should have a noticeable handle and should not swing both ways (insert pun?). Isn’t it more expensive to pay for a door to have two handles than it is to have one, anyway?? I wonder how, why, and who was responsible for such doorway atrocities every time I encounter the inevitable ambiguous door situation. To add insult to injury, my building’s lobby doors each open in a different direction and both have handles. One’s a push and the other’s a pull. I can never remember which is which, especially when intoxicated or exhausted (roughly 80% of the time). My boyfriend sometimes purposefully walks on the left side of me because he knows I always try to push the right door, which pulls out. He happens to be one of the many humans who accepts the responsibility of learning and remembering this “quirk”, rather than the egregious design flaw that it is. He is certainly not alone.
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