From Lose Friends Radio comes this ‘Believe it or not’ segment Number 15, called ‘Lift off’. You can read the transcript below, or listen to the original broadcast by clicking on the green play button: [audio:Jonar_Nader_15_BION_Lift_off.mp3]
Believe it or not, according to Jonar Nader, a man by the name of Charbel Simon has written to all the major standards bodies such as ISO to suggest that elevators should comply with a single international standard when it comes to user panels.
In a media release issued at the International Engineers Convention where Mr Simon was a keynote speaker on product usability, he said that when he first left school and worked as a mail boy, he had to run around town delivering letters. Every elevator he went into, had a different control panel. “I was always in a hurry,” he explains, “and when I ran into a lift, I felt frustrated as I tried to find the floor I wanted. Some lifts had numbers that zigzagged their way up a panel. Other had numbers in descending order.”
Mr Simon added, “Each lift had a different type and style of button. Some were easy to press, others caught on my fingernail. Sometimes I would try to press a number, only to realise that what I was pressing was not a button at all, but the label next to the button. Some panels were so low and so dark that I could not see the numbers at all.”
His white-paper on the subject also calls for standardisation on the meaning of ‘Ground floor’ and ‘Lobby’. “I was never sure which floor was the street level,” he said, some had ‘G’ while others used the word ‘Lobby’, some had the number ‘1’ yet in some buildings number ‘3’ is where the main foyer was. I was most perplexed by one particular resort hotel where I spent 10 minutes in the lift trying to work out how to get to the car park. I looked for the car park button but no luck; I searched for a basement button; nothing. I searched for lower ground, again nothing. I finally found the Lobby and asked the concierge who kindly pointed out that to get to the car park one needs to push ‘-1’. That’s two buttons, the minus button followed by the number 1 button. Who designed that lift… Pythagoras?
Mr Simon also calls for standardisation on the use of the number ‘13’. He said that some buildings did not have a 13th floor. They went from 12 to 14, but if he ever had to take the stairs, he found that there actually was a 13th floor. It just did not have access via the lift… Spooky!
A large lift manufacturer said that it would be difficult to comply with any such standards because client preferences vary. Naturally, this response does not satisfy Mr Simon.
Believe it… or not.
Comments are closed.