NM4210: Badly-designed Learning Report

If there's something i can think of that's badly designed, its definitely got to be the doors to those classrooms along the AS1 walkway.... and if you wonder why....

Most (or a rather large majority) of door handles are designed to be pushed down in order to open the door. The door handles for classrooms at the AS1 walkway however have to be pulled upwards in order to open them, effectively meaning that by pushing them downwards (like you would for normal doors), you're locking yourself out instead of opening the door.

This makes it a bad design in the sense that its non-conventional. I admit it's unusual (perhaps 'cool' even to some), but when you're late, rushing to a classroom and trying to open the door, the last thing you need is a door handle which doesn't follow the standard conventions.

I'm pretty sure most people who have had lessons in the AS1 classrooms have either personally experienced or at least witnessed a harrased student trying to rush into class, only to be unable to open the non-conventional door, which would probably lead to a lot of frustration for them because it makes them even later than they already are.

After a few unsuccessful attempts (and some help from students in the classroom), they would finally be able to open the door.... and probably learn that the door handle is supposed to move up instead of down. Since the door has no "brand", it would hard to actually figure out a user's impression of the brand (except maybe if you consider comments like "why on earth did anyone design doors like this?" to be a negative impression of the architecture firm that designed the doors).

So what do i personally think of this product (if you could consider it a product)? I think that while it seems like a unique idea, it is a bad design in the sense that it works totally opposite to conventional designs for similar items. People have conceptual (mental) models about how things should work (which generally are conventions followed by the majority), and if a design goes against these conventions and conceptual models, it will be difficult for people to understand and use these products.

As for the user reaction, i would think that it is normal and understandable. Given the circumstances where the evidences of this atypical and bad design occurs, they have every reason to feel frustrated. When someone is in a hurry or under stress, they rarely think about the exceptions to the rules (such as the way this particular door handle works), often resorting to those conceptual models they know and which have become habitual, so naturally they would try opening the door by pushing the handle downwards (and get frustrated when it achieves the opposite result of locking them out of the room).