Bad design

Bad designs...are everywhere, that is only if we observe our surroundings carefully.

If anyone of you care to recall the mental map on how you'll attend Reddy's NM4210 lecture every Tuesday. It will probably be walk/ run to the seminar room, push the handle down to open the door, look for an empty seat and settle down. All these seems like a breeze, but what if simple jobs such as opening the door is made a challenge?

You got me. It is right here in NUS, the world-class invention of the amazing doorknob. Here's presenting a very short video clip to effectively explain what I meant by the the usual and unusual way of opening a door.



Here are some pictures to illustrate my point in case the video takes eons to stream or it fails to work.


The above picture shows the usual way of opening a door. Everyone knows that.


Opps! By doing the same action the door can't be opened.


That's right. The door will only be opened if you simply push it.

It is our reflex to push down the handle to open the door. However, this particular handle does not allow us to do so. By doing the same action, we will be locking ourselves out of the room. Chanting "open sesame" will not do the magic. It will only be opened if we lift up the handle and push the door. I really wonder why is the doorknob invented like this? If we speculate that it is to lock the door, it wouldn't be the case, since there is a keyhole for security guards to lock it from outside.

I asked SL's reaction on this product, and this is what she said about her feelings towards this invention,

"Why do they design it this way when it defeats the conventional way of thinking...and it has sort of become a reflex to push the door knob downwards... "

How about the lesson learnt from this?

"It's better to stick to conventions sometimes while creating things in an innovative manner, else it might backfire. The person who designed this had too much free time I think. Unless it's meant to have added security, it is a bad invention. "

Impression of this product?

"Why go to such lengths to create such a product that is not user-friendly? "

Exactly. User-friendly is the key to every product. I had personally seen many students having problems opening the door due to the weird design. Such doors are available at the seminar rooms in Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences AS4 and AS1. The fact that several classmates shared same sentiments as me could verify that this invention is really problematic.

I feel that a user-friendly product is more important than the design. Otherwise it will just be a white elephant. Afterall, designing is all about how it works...