I once got a recommendation for "The design of everyday things" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman...) with a warning: It will break the world for you, because you'll go around noticing how things are designed counter-intuitively, requiring large signs to explain what should be obvious. A good example: "Push"/"pull" signs on doors. Multiple branches of humanity independently developed the ability to design doors that any other human that understands the concept of a door can figure out how to open. Then, suddenly, around 50 years ago, that knowledge apparently vanished, and we started to have to put big "how to use" instruction stickers on one of the simplest and most intuitive objects ever invented.
It may be that many things are counter intuitive, but it seems calling out doors as something that has ever been intuitive is fallacious. Perhaps they used to be more consistent, but it doesn't take a lot of effort to find horrific accidents that happened years ago because doors weren't designed well.
Not to mention, watching my kids learn different doors has been amusing. I would think intuitive is the wrong word, so much as simple determination will get you through most any door.
It seems more likely that around 50 years ago the technology and literacy rates had finally advanced enough that push/pull signs could be easily attached to commonly used doors.
Yes, I exaggerated on artistic license, maybe a bit more than the anecdote could carry. That doesn't change the fact that a door that adults in a civilized country needs written instructions to operate is completely and utterly broken.
I still disagree that this is at all a new found thing. There is a reason building codes had to be drafted requiring exits to open out on buildings, after all. (So, really, the design of the door shouldn't even matter. Adults can remember that the main doors open out, right? :) )
I mainly question if it is truly a sign of a problem, as seems implicated by it being brought up. Still seems to me that it just happens because the cost for doing so is essentially nil.
The fire exit issue is a separate one: The reason emergency exits need to open out is that you can't count on being able to take a step back and open the door in a panic. In non-panic situations (practically all of them), doors work equally well opening in or out.
Yeah, but my point is two fold. First: Exterior doors to a building open out, pretty much period.* So, the handle is moot. If people really gave much thought to doors, they would be able to remember that, regardless of the handle.
Second: The reason for the exterior doors to open out is rather obvious (once you've considered the reason). Yet it was not originally in building code. This implicates that many places do it "wrong." Or, at least, they did years ago.
The first claim really just leads to "most people do not pay attention to such every day things." Even if you get it wrong, you only lose a second at a door. The penalty just isn't high.
The second is to say that it isn't like people were making flawless doors in the past. (Though, I particularly dislike "pocket" doors. I think those have fallen out of favour, thankfully.)
* Of course, I look at my house door and remember that residence entrances open in. Maybe that fundamental inconsistency is the true culprit here... :) I realize there is a good reason to keep the hinges internal to a house. So... not sure what to say about that.
Emergency doors (not "exterior doors" as a whole) are to open out because there might be a barrage on them in an emergency. Your house door isn't likely to experience a barrage (or rather, the fire code forbids you from having too many people in your house, partly because it isn't fitted with proper emergency exits for crowds).
This has nothing, what so ever, to do with whether or not a door is intuitively designed. Also, whether or not you lose a second opening a door is irrelevant (and you've just given the excuse for 1990's enterprise software UX - as long as it's possible to complete a task, who cares if it's easy or intuitive. Everyone, it turns out, but it took a while to hammer that point int).
The point is that "we" have the knowledge to design a door that is clearly and immediately usable (without losing a second) by anyone who's ever used a door - but sometimes "we" apparently chose not to use it. That is the conundrum outlined.
I know it isn't exterior doors as a whole. But the vast majority of doors you will encounter on a public building have to be usable in an emergency. So, I think you'll be hard pressed to find one that doesn't open out. (Again, unless you drop into residential doors.)
Your point that we have the knowledge to make doors that are immediately usable is just something I don't believe. I've seen people use doors incorrectly that fit the guidelines of that book. Hell, I think I've done so myself. And, I argue that this is almost completely related to the consistency of how a door opens. Not the handle. (e.g., after years of living in a high rise where the entrance opened out and all I did was go to public buildings where all doors open out, not too shockingly, I was more prone to opening house doors incorrectly.)
My argument was never that "so long as it is possible..." The argument I put forth was more that the cost for getting a door wrong is ridiculously low, so people don't put that much thought into it. On either side of the isle. (Well, designers want doors to be pretty.) Your 90s example is attacking things where the cost was actually high, but the designers didn't care.
I think you can basically sum up my viewpoint with the common attack on intuitive designs that nothing is truly intuitive in and of itself. Pretty much everything is leveraged on something you have previously learned. If it seems intuitive, it is really just familiar. In the case of doors, the familiar behaviour trumps any design decisions. (If you have some good studies against this, by all means I'm game to read them. More than just the book that started this thread, though.)
I used to work at a hospital with an automatic elliptical revolving door (I assume it was designed that way so you could push a gurney through it). On the one hand: automatic revolving door, shiny! On the other hand: they had to post a sign telling people how to walk through it.
