Redesigning an Elevator’s UI | Brian Scates. About six months ago I moved out of my suburban house and into an apartment in a 35 story building in downtown Dallas. This of course necessitated the use of an elevator 5-6 times a day to walk the dog, go to lunch, meetings, etc. Any time I need to go anywhere, the trip starts with an elevator. It’s a typical elevator, lots of round buttons for the floors, buttons for opening and closing the door, etc. It’s pretty much just like every other elevator I’ve ever used, but something about using it all the time has made me realize how poorly designed elevators are in terms of interface, particularly this one. My building was built in the ’50s, a classic mid-century modern skyscraper, and I would bet that despite renovations and improvements over the years, the elevator interface has changed very little in 50 years. Why not? So of course, being a designer, I set to work to do better. In this image I’ve highlighted where all the buttons go.
Andrew Hennigan's Communications Blog: One Click from Disaster: Errorproofing Web Interface Designs. Just recently I wrote about how many rogue tweets are the fault of poor user interface design in Rogue Tweets: Where They Come From; How to Stop Them. In early 2010 I also wrote about this topic in When No Communication is Best: Speed Skating, Morphine Overdoses and the Wings Fall Off Button. But I see that the lessons of errorproof interface design are not being learned very quickly.
Many rogue tweets with serious consequences are caused by people tweeting a message to the wrong account. But if you look at excellent clients like Tweetdeck or web services like Hootsuite the choice of account is made by clicking on tiny icons that are very close together. It is only a matter of time before you send a message the wrong way. Another example appeared this month when I tried the new shortmail.com email service. We can learn many lessons from the world of aviation where errorproofing aircraft controls, operational procedures and maintenance operations is normal practice.
Case025. Case012. Case019. Case023. Design Council - inclusive design case studies index.