How Doors Can Help Us Understand Human Design

Doors Are Inherently Human

In my most recent video, I discussed the concept of Norman Doors. These are the doors that you might accidentally pull when they actually need to be pushed (or vice versa). These doors sometimes have signs that indicate whether you need to “push” or “pull”, but in an ideal world you would not need to have such a sign to describe this. It would be intuitive.

I always love publishing videos like this because the comment section starts getting into the edge cases. Also, discussion begins about how this is handled in different parts of the world (for example, I didn’t know that in Slovakia the word for “push” AND “pull” is a palindrome: “ŤAHAŤ”… super confusing). But what makes this so cool is that we all have a shared experience with this type of situation.

And that’s why I made this video, to discuss a common human experience that can tell us something about a broader concept: designing for human intuitiveness. It’s more than just pulling a push door. It’s about how we’ve all had a situation where we’ve mistakingly misused an object that is probably one of the most common human made objects in the world. How is that even possible?

Human Surroundings

There are some cultural elements when it comes to what we experience in our day-to-day surroundings. For example, I’m in the Philippines at the moment and am sitting on a mat writing on a low table. This is not so common in Spain, where I used to live, or in the US, where I live now.

In Spain, the light switches for the bathroom are oftentimes OUTSIDE the bathroom door. I don’t know why this is, but ever since moving back to the US I find my hand looking for the light switch outside the door. This is a cultural difference.

But things remain mostly the same worldwide. I’m writing on a table because I know it’s meant for that and not for sitting. I look for a light switch that will go up/down or left/right because 99% of light switches around the world do this.

And I think where people struggle the most is when those common design norms are not actually followed. Imagine a stop sign being green. Or when the “X” button doesn’t close a window on your computer. This is the type of intuitiveness I am talking about.

Why Intuitiveness Is Important

Now it’s funny to think about some design quirks in not so important things, but can be incredibly frustrating in other contexts. For example, I was once stuck in a parking garage in Spain because I could not figure out how to reverse in a manual car.

Now it’s not because I didn’t know how to drive a manual car, I’ve been driving manual cars for years. But the reverse wasn’t where it usually is in other cars. So I got stuck in a situation where I needed to reverse, but I couldn’t. I thought there was something wrong with the car!

After many failed attempts to reverse and actually putting the car in neutral and pushing the car to reverse it, I found the instruction manual online. There was a black ring on the clutch that needed to be lifted to reverse and it blended in with the leather on the clutch. Not intuitive, could be mistaken for a design element, no label, and also difficult to lift.

Now this turned out just to be a major annoyance that luckily didn’t lead to anything too catastrophic. But imagine if I was in an emergency situation and needed to reverse? Why did this car have an alternative approach to reversing that most other manual cars didn’t have?

This is where intuitiveness becomes critical. Luckily I have not been in an emergency situation recently, but if I see the sign “break glass in case of emergency” I know exactly what I’m going to do. Leaves no room for question and the glass looks breakable.

If I’m in a fire and I need to leave a building immediately, do I want to be guessing how to open a window? Or opening a door? No, my brain is in autopilot (and probably “panic mode”) and I need it to accurately determine what I can and cannot do with the objects around me.

Digital Experiences and Discovering New Human Intuitiveness

If you give a human from the 1920s a smartphone, they wouldn’t know how to use it. Well, not at first. Yet, nowadays, you see digital native 4 year olds whipping through apps on their iPads like it’s nothing. Humans are incredibly adaptable and create new norms as our environments change around us.

In my video, I shared the website userinyerface.com. The team that made this did a great job in highlighting how much we take good digital design for granted. The site is designed in a way to confuse you and mixes up affordances and signifiers (I talk more about those in my latest video). I suggest you check it out.

The thing is about digital experiences is they evolve so quickly, so UX designers need to be wary of the type of experiences they are building. I mean think about it, 20 years ago we were only using computers with keyboards. Now we mostly use touch capable mobile devices. And soon we are going to be leaping into the world of voice assisted AI platforms and virtual reality experiences.

It’s hard to design new norms so quickly! But what happens as we rely more and more on them for very important tasks? Think about my car example. Cars now increasingly rely on touchscreen technology to activate certain features. What if I have to figure out how to open my windows using a touchscreen in the future? Then it’s important for the digital experience to be seamless.

Wrap Up

So if it’s not clear enough, the Norman Door concept isn’t really about the doors themselves. It’s about the concept of human-centered design and the importance of intuitiveness in our day-to-day experiences.

With this newsletter, I hope to expand on my most recent videos and to help start a conversation that you might not have had before.

Behavioral science is cool! And I think these types of things we experience are not always brought to our attention in a way that is meaningful and relatable.

Let’s change that together.

-Carlos

If you liked this newsletter, consider sharing it with the people in your life! I would also love to hear any feedback you have as I continue working on this new medium.

And if you would like to support my caffeine habit as I am writing these, you can buy me a coffee here ☕️