Norman Doors

Hea Anonymous,

Are you sure? I must look back at the Vox video to check. If it is, I’ll have to blackball that photo.

Hi green-tea-and-go:Here is the post, enjoy!

Bartosz Milewski has an excellent example of wonderfully functional but incredibly baffling design: the traditional British train carriage door.

I’ll let Mr. Milewski describe the situation that creates mild panic in the users mind:   

Do you see any kind of a handle? In the obvious location, you see a steel plate. You push it, kick it–nothing! Maybe there is a button? You start searching, more and more desperately as the train gets ready to continue its ride. If you are lucky, you’ll notice a blue plaque above the window.

Here’s what it says:

Image 2: Instructions on how to open the door on a sign, above the door.  

That’s right! The handle is outside. Please notice that the climate in those parts of the world is not very user-friendly. It gets cold in winter and it rains a lot. I presume they don’t have special winter railway cars. On second thought, I shouldn’t presume anything.

Dan Lockton has an interesting theory on why these doors follow this design:

I’m assuming that this design was intended to introduce an extra step into the door-opening procedure, a speed-hump, if you like, to make it less likely that a door was opened accidentally while the train was in motion (before central door locking was introduced – which makes it less necessary).    From a usability point of view, we might immediately dismiss any system which has to have such detailed instructions to inform the user about performing such a simple task, but it’s certainly interesting to consider this kind of poka-yoke.   

Being forced to lowering the window to get to the handle is almost like a modal ‘Are you sure you want to delete this file?’ dialogue box.

Interesting thought: the door has been designed in such a way to make it “less usable” in order to deter users from using it except when vital, i.e. getting off the train.

But, as Mr. Bartosz mentioned above:

You start searching, more and more desperately as the train gets ready to continue its ride

Mr. Lockton hits the nail into the coffin of this functional but borderline unusable door when he mentions the impact this door has on train fuel efficiency.

Image 3: Signage is now needed to persuade users to close the windows, they need to open in a hurry to get out of the train, for train fuel efficiency.

This sticker suggests keeping the window closed to cut drag and save fuel, but as I walked along the train, almost all these windows were dropped down, left in that position by the last person to close the door.

The urgency of scrabbling to lower the window, stick your hand out and use the handle, with a crowd of commuters behind you probably overwrites any intentions to close the window again engendered by the ‘Make a small change’ sticker.

Hi green-tea-and-go!Thanks for your message. Yes, it was a bit of a disaster. But thankfully someone gave me a great idea to restore it.

Yes, I remember the post. It was a post I wrote.

I’m restoring them at the moment. If you can wait for a 1 or 2 it’ll be there again.

Can I ask you why was it interesting? I’m always curious.

Thanks!

Push? Pull?

Here’s a good example of a Norman Door from a pub in London, The Florist in east London.

It’s not as bad as it looks - due to the step in front of the door, people seem to understand that it’s a push door. How odd would it be to have a door opening out, onto a step.

(NB: Colourful language in the video!)

This is the “robbing the bookies” scene from the 2000 Guy Ritchie movie “Snatch”, where Vinny and Tyrone rob Brick Top’s bookies.

They mistakenly thought the man they followed in was their mark, “you’ve got 5 fingers!!”. So instead they’ve tried to rob the bookies and fail, miserably.

Their focus has now switched to escaping. As quickly as possible.

They are not thinking logically.

Due to Vinny and Tyrone’s heightened emotional and stress levels, they fail to see the handle on the inside of the door, they’re focusing on their end gola - self-preservation. They try to kick the door open.

Vinny shouts, “It won’t open because it’s a security door!!”.

Not quite Vinny.

They’re now even more stressed, so they start shooting at the door.

When people are in stressful or emotional situations, focusing on their end goal, they’ll often make what seem like stupid mistakes.

They misread instructions, leave out information, miss important parts.

You’ve got to understand their emotional state and try to design for it. Ideally your design does not excerbate that heightened emotional state.

This is a great, old, video from Vox Media about Norman Doors. It’s also got a video interview with the Don himself.

Here’s his short blogpost about the video.

What is Norman Doors?

Norman Doors is a permanent Internet photo, video collection of examples of horrendous bad everyday design.

It is also a celebration of all that is awesome about Don Norman!

Who is Don Norman?

Don Norman is an expert in the field of design in general, human-computer interaction and user-centred design. He is the co-founder of the user-centred design consulting company Nielsen-Norman.

He has also written a number of popular books on design, The Design of everyday things, Emotional design, The Design of future things, and Living with complexity.

What is a Norman Door?

A Norman Door is an example of something which is badly designed which confuses the user.

A Norman Door is a door whose design tells the person to do the opposite of what they’re actually supposed to do.

A Norman Door is a door that gives the wrong signal and needs a sign to correct it.

Because of this bad design, the user then does not know what to do.

Image 1: an example of a badly design door - do you push or pull on this door that opens only one way?

The term was first used in Norman’s book, The Design of everyday things.

I can hear the reader saying “You have trouble opening doors?” Yes. I push doors that are meant to be pulled, pull doors that should be pushed, and walk into doors that neither pull nor push, but slide. Moreover, I see others having the same troubles-unnecessary troubles.

My problems with doors have become so well known that confusing doors are often called “Norman doors”.

How can such a simple thing as a door be so confusing? A door would seem to be as simple as device as possible. There is not much you can do with a door: you can open it or shut it. How does it open? Should you push or pull, on the left or the right? Maybe the door slides. If so, in what direction?

The design of the door should indicate how to work it without any need for signs, certainly without any need for trial and error.

Norman also wrote about the infamous doors in his blog post “When bugs become features”.

He describes a picture of a door (image 1 above) sent to him by someone in an email.

The sender explains how difficult it was to use the door - the glass door only opens in one direction, however the architect installed “pull” handles on both sides of the door in pursuit of “artistic consistency”.

Norman ends the post on a note of despair:

Confusing? Who cares? After all, now it is art, and art doesn’t have to work – it simply has to be appreciated.

I’ve found a Norman Door! What do I do?

1. Take a photo of it or make a video showing it.

2. Submit it to the Norman Doors tumblog explaining why it’s confusing!