This entry was posted on March 8, 2011 at 7:53 pm and is filed under fedora, life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Eh, you can argue it both ways. People already using the other door don’t need to read the sign. People who are about to try to use the broken door *do* need to see the sign, and might not see it if it were on the other door; if someone’s approaching from the right, they could walk straight up to the right-hand door and not see the sign.
All of which is to say, I think there are much better examples of bad UI out there.
Yeah these are good points. I’ll tell you why I thought the other way is better. This seems to me like someone making making a lot of movement weaving his hands, just to tell you that the guy next to him has a question for you.
There are definitely worse user interfaces out there
Actually I have done this experiment (prank?) in college. Most people will walk up to the unlabeled door and try to get in for quite some time without going to the one on the left. When asked people end up saying “its on the right, you always enter on the right?” other people are usually so upset they just spout obscenities and go elsewhere. EVEN IF THE OTHER DOOR IS LABELED AS “ENTER HERE”.
In fact a good percentage of people will still go up to a door that is labeled “Use other door” and try to use it for several seconds before reading the sign and moving to the other door. In the end there are deep cultural conventions that people have wired to do something (walk or enter on the right in some places) and those will override cleanly presented information.
lol it sounds like this experement inspired more anger that I would have expected
I never thought of that “enter on the right” convention. So you have found that “enter on the right” wins over both kinds of labelling ? Now that I think about it, the couple of problematic doors with this kind of labelling that I can remember have been on the right hand side.
Between the two kinds of labelling did you notice which one won ?
Interesting! I’ve never gone so far as to label a door but you can observe something similar just by walking on the left side of the sidewalk when faced with people coming the other way. People don’t have time to get upset… but you can see them mentally stumbling as something seems not quite right.
March 8, 2011 at 8:21 pm |
Eh, you can argue it both ways. People already using the other door don’t need to read the sign. People who are about to try to use the broken door *do* need to see the sign, and might not see it if it were on the other door; if someone’s approaching from the right, they could walk straight up to the right-hand door and not see the sign.
All of which is to say, I think there are much better examples of bad UI out there.
March 8, 2011 at 9:19 pm |
Yeah these are good points. I’ll tell you why I thought the other way is better. This seems to me like someone making making a lot of movement weaving his hands, just to tell you that the guy next to him has a question for you.
There are definitely worse user interfaces out there
March 8, 2011 at 8:56 pm |
Actually I have done this experiment (prank?) in college. Most people will walk up to the unlabeled door and try to get in for quite some time without going to the one on the left. When asked people end up saying “its on the right, you always enter on the right?” other people are usually so upset they just spout obscenities and go elsewhere. EVEN IF THE OTHER DOOR IS LABELED AS “ENTER HERE”.
In fact a good percentage of people will still go up to a door that is labeled “Use other door” and try to use it for several seconds before reading the sign and moving to the other door. In the end there are deep cultural conventions that people have wired to do something (walk or enter on the right in some places) and those will override cleanly presented information.
March 8, 2011 at 9:26 pm |
lol it sounds like this experement inspired more anger that I would have expected
I never thought of that “enter on the right” convention. So you have found that “enter on the right” wins over both kinds of labelling ? Now that I think about it, the couple of problematic doors with this kind of labelling that I can remember have been on the right hand side.
Between the two kinds of labelling did you notice which one won ?
March 8, 2011 at 11:40 pm |
Interesting! I’ve never gone so far as to label a door but you can observe something similar just by walking on the left side of the sidewalk when faced with people coming the other way. People don’t have time to get upset… but you can see them mentally stumbling as something seems not quite right.
March 13, 2011 at 7:23 pm |
They should make these four sided doors that turn and revolve around themselves
March 29, 2011 at 8:42 pm |
fake