Have you ever pressed the “door open” button in an elevator with the door open, waited a second, only to realize that the door is still open? You then press the “door close” button and go on your merry way.

That’s clearly bad UI design. The “door open” button is never valid when the door is open and the “door close” button is never valid when the door is closed. I’m suggesting to elevator manufacturers worldwide to place only a single button in elevators that checks the state of the door before doing the only possible desired outcome.

What if the door is in process of closing and you want to open it, Raj? Huh, huh, huh? Even if the door is in process of closing and you are benevolent enough to allow that hurried soul who needs to get from the 2nd floor to the ground floor in a hurry, pressing the lone button would assume open, not close faster.

There’s value in defaults and simplicity. And checking state.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 9th, 2006 at 2:17 am and is filed under Design, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.