Redesigning an Elevator Panel
For my Foundations of Human Systems Engineering course, we were asked to redesign the pictured elevator control panel and answer the question of:
“Why do we sometimes fail to find the door open button in time to hold an elevator door open for someone?”
There are many reasons why the top row of buttons are more easily understandable than the bottom row of buttons. The poor layout, labeling and visual display, and context of the different rows attribute to the differences of understanding between the first and second row.
Critique of Current Panel Design
To start, the first row of the elevator panel’s labels are more easily understood than the second row’s labels. This is due to the fact that the numbers are more straightforward than symbols. Working memory is the part of short-term memory that is concerned with immediate perceptual and linguistic processing. Although the “Door Open,” “Door Close,” and “Stop Run” are well-established IEC/ISO symbols, GoCognitive’s Working Memory Capacity Demonstration clearly demonstrates that numbers are easier to retain and recognize than symbols by measuring memory retention.
Additionally, the supplementary text accompanying the symbols on the second row are small and difficult to read. The labels are broken up by the accompanying symbol which makes it hard to read the full phrase at once. It is also important to note that the text are in all capitals. Labels in all capitals are harder to recognize as their word shape creates a rectangle.
It is nice that “Door Open” and “Door Close” are colored blue, making the two functions easily distinguishable. Although the blue visually highlights the two functions, it is odd that they are not grouped together, and are in fact on separate ends of the row.
Additionally, the buttons for “Alarm” and “Stop Run” feel displaced from the rest of the panel due to inconsistent format. The “Alarm” button is missing a label all together, which is terrible usability practice. Though there are many benefits to icon usage (such as fast recognizability, universal application, and appealing visual design), a text label alongside an icon can help overcome ambiguity.
The “Stop Run” button, however, is so poorly designed in context with the rest of the panel, it even took me a while to even understand its purpose! The button-switch is small and red, and the “Stop Run” label is surrounding the actual button-switch, instead of the ⨂ symbol.
The inconsistent layout can leave users asking questions such as: What is the ⨂ symbol associated with? What is the red thing between “STOP” and “RUN”? Where is the actual button? Consistency in designs is important and although there is a need to distinguish this button as an emergency protocol, it is important to remain consistent in regards to format.
Elevator Panel Redesign
To address the above issues, below is the redesign of the elevator panel.
Below is the redesigned panel with reasons why particular design decisions were made.
Conclusion
Overall, the poor design of the original elevator panel does not allow for quick processing for the human brain. Clear labels and imagery, as well as a consistent design, make way for recognizability. My redesign of the elevator panel addresses most of the problems highlighted in the original design, but there is certainly always room for improvement. As Dieter Rams once said, “Good design is temporary,” so I’m curious, how would you redesign this panel?
