Comments on John Graham-Cumming: The Elevator Button Problem

The problem with a LCD touch-screen is how will a ...

2010-09-30T17:25:17.825Z

The problem with a LCD touch-screen is how will a blind person know what to press?

Has anyone considered a "push-to-talk" button? One button with braille, perhaps, underneath or above the LCD touch-screen where a blind person could press and say the floor they require? Don't forget about ADA requirements...

Consider this. There are 2 elevators. One on the f...

2010-08-11T21:25:40.191Z

Consider this. There are 2 elevators. One on the first floor and one on the 7th floor. You are on the 5th floor and you wish to go to the 10th floor. Here you can't use the logic of pressing the direction in which the lift will reach you; you should press the button for the direction in which you wish to travel and the closest lift will come to you So my guess is that the logic for twin lifts is carried forward to the singular lift as well.

For many years, I delivered newspapers in beach-si...

2010-07-04T05:46:37.007Z

For many years, I delivered newspapers in beach-side condos, which required the use of many different brands or makes of elevators. Some were made by Miami Elevator Company and many others by Otis, but most of them had the same interface features designed to service the most people in the quickest time.

One feature they all share is that they all have up/down buttons on all floors except the bottom and the top. If you start on the 3rd floor and you want to go to the 10th floor, and you hit the down button, then most elevators will continue to go down to the first floor before ascending to the higher floor that you wanted to go to.

If you don't mind the ride, and if its a single elevator, then you might as well take the ride. It is nice to have a choice to ride or to wait for it to come back in most cases. Consider the old days when elevators had operators running the controls and he decided which way to move the car. People often waited a long time to get picked up if they were on a higher floor.

In the case of a building with multiple elevators, directional buttons are a great time saving feature. If you had only one button, and didn't get to choose if you were going up or down, then you could end up taking long needless time consuming elevator rides. In my busy world, that would be very inconvenient!

I think the person that doesn't understand tha...

2010-06-29T08:01:26.162Z

I think the person that doesn't understand that you need to press the button that indicates the direction that you want to go is a rare case.

UI designers get caught up on fringe cases too often. I say keep it simple and let that one person in a hundred be confused.

The status numbers are usually at the top of the elevator doors - so by context they are removed from the actual task of calling the elevator. If they were located next to the call buttons..then it would be a problem.

Better to have an interface that's easy for 90% of the users than to add unnecessary complexity to accommodate the remaining 10%.

In other words, I think the elevator problem isn't a problem after all. I mean, even that person that pushed the down button to get the elevator from the 5th floor would figure things out after a couple of attempts.

The interface is obvious for most users and easily learned by the rest.

Quote: "2. The information about the current ...

2010-06-29T03:34:43.867Z

Quote: "2. The information about the current floor the elevator is on actually presents a problem for the caller. "

> Without knowing what is the lift's current floor, how will users approximate how long it will take before the elevator arrives?

In some cases, users may choose to take the stairs or choose to take a teleconference phonecall from the lobby since they can't make it to the office in time.

Why don't we have a "Cancel" button ...

2010-06-28T20:44:29.144Z

Why don't we have a "Cancel" button in elevators ?
I hate when someone hit the wrong floor number ...

The answer is: the user is an idiot. You need bot...

2010-06-27T04:35:03.522Z

The answer is: the user is an idiot.

You need both buttons to properly schedule the elevator. A busy single elevator unit will keep going up until it hits the top and then does the opposite, which is the best path to minimize wait time. The difference is even bigger with a multiple elevator hub.

If you use one button and go for closest floor, the maximum wait time is infinity (as Max says). If you go for the person who has been waiting the longest, you end up skipping people you could have picked up along the way.

Hey, But the information as to what floor the ele...

2010-06-26T22:18:06.293Z

Hey,

But the information as to what floor the elevator is on provides some estimate for how long it will take the elevator to answer your request - and therefore whether or not you'd be better off taking the stairs instead.

In one fifteen story building at a university I visited you programmed the lift with the number of the destination floor. This makes a lot of sense, as quite large groups of people (going to the same seminar or lecture) can then travel very quickly to their destination together. Additionally, it lets the system allocate the elevators efficiently in the case where people are travelling up and down.

There were instructions though, and six elevators serving the building.

Yours,

Jonathan

A Paternoster would be a problem to some aged peop...

2010-06-26T02:08:51.095Z

A Paternoster would be a problem to some aged people or someone in a wheel chair. I don't think that would be a good solution for the nowadays acessibility demands.

Sigh. Many UX people seem to presume that all inf...

2010-06-24T09:50:21.043Z

Sigh. Many UX people seem to presume that all information presented to a user is solely for their experiential pleasure, and anything that spoils the magical marriage of maximum simplicity and sleek design is detrimental.

In this case, as others have pointed out, the two buttons let the elevator decide far more efficiently how to serve its occupants by optimising how it stops in each direction.

I can (barely) see how a display of the current floor could be confusing _if_ it's close to the buttons, but you could equally make the argument that it's obviously for letting the user decide if they're willing to wait for the lift to move from floor 28 to where they wait on floor 2, or to walk those two flights of stairs up to the 4th floor where they're going.

The tradeoff being argued for here is a simpler immediate button-pushing experience for a longer and less efficient travelling experience. Do you really want to inconvenience the 99.9999% of people who have used lifts before, and understand that they're for going up and down in a building, with the .0001% of Amazonian tribespeople who don't recognise the nomenclature and might get all in a tizz? How are these people even recognising the concepts that Buttons Make Stuff Happen and Pointy Icons Indicate Directions?

I like the maxim "as simple as possible, but no simpler." I think these ideas stray into the latter. The system is there to help the user, and the user can help themselves by helping the system. C'mon, give 'em two buttons. At the very least it'll make 'em feel free.

Great minds think alike: http://janneinosaka.blogs...

2010-06-24T09:17:09.137Z

Great minds think alike: http://janneinosaka.blogspot.com/2010/04/my-problem-with-elevators.html

And yes, there's no really good solution to this.

Inside elevators, you usually find open- and close...

2010-06-24T03:18:24.937Z

Inside elevators, you usually find open- and close-door buttons. The buttons are often labelled "<>" and "><" for open and close, respectively.

(I found a picture here: gatech)

Now, imagine you're slightly short-sighted, perhaps, or you're thinking under pressure (someone is hurrying towards the lift and you need to quickly push the "open" button before the lift leaves). Which button better conveys the image of open doors?

You have to pick up and down because if the elevat...

2010-06-23T15:00:50.162Z

You have to pick up and down because if the elevator already has people in it going up to floors above you, it won't stop if you choose down. And if the elevator has people already in it going to floors below you, it won't stop if you choose up. In a busy building, it would be inefficient to stop all the time.

I used an elevator system recently in a hotel in B...

2010-06-23T14:47:07.945Z

I used an elevator system recently in a hotel in Barcelona where there were buttons to select a floor outside the elevator, so you selected your floor in advance and it scheduled the lifts efficiently. Perhaps the hotel was just not very popular, but its three elevators felt like they serviced the hotel very quickly.

i really liked to read this post since i find it&#...

2010-06-23T09:41:56.981Z

i really liked to read this post since i find it's a great example about how UI design is to be found everywhere.

there's one thing i'd like to add, though, concerning the fact that when calling the elevator with the UP button, nothing will keep the user from going DOWN instead afterwards (don't know if anyone else already mentioned this): there definitely ARE elevators which show the following behaviour:

when i'm on floor 2 and want to go to ground level, i'll press the DOWN button. If the elevator at that point is on floor 1 and already on it's way to a floor above mine (2), it won't even stop on my floor: it will first go to it's actual destination (3 or above) and then return to my floor to pick me up for my way down - taking into account that my entering in floor 2 will not help me getting to my destination any faster, but will only slow the persons currently riding the elevator up.

This behaviour imho justifies the existence of two different buttons and is a nice example for a slim UI. Of course, the problem remains that no user guide for such an elevator exists ;-)

Windows comes with a button labeled as 'start&...

2010-06-23T09:35:20.249Z

Windows comes with a button labeled as 'start' which I have to press first in order to shut down.
Luckily they don't build elevator interfaces.

I hope that none of you UI experts ever get to des...

2010-06-23T01:05:44.733Z

I hope that none of you UI experts ever get to design an elevator system, because it would be so unusable that everyone would be using the stairs. But, I'm sure that everyone would be commenting on how beautiful the buttons were as they walked by them.

Maybe the goal is to save electricity and get people to excercise more. If so, then job well done!

Let's say I'm on the 3rd floor and want to...

2010-06-22T23:02:57.664Z

Let's say I'm on the 3rd floor and want to go down. The elevator has someone going up to the 3rd floor and there is a request on the 5th floor. Many elevators will continue up to the 5th floor. If there is only one call button, the elevator must reset it when letting the upward bound passenger off at the 3rd floor. I would need to press the call button again once the elevator leaves to let the system know I still need an elevator.

I don't think this is a problem at all. If you...

2010-06-22T21:55:07.892Z

I don't think this is a problem at all. If you want to walk this planet, you need to have some rudimentary reasoning skills, not the least of which is understanding a simple, universal tool such as an elevator calling button.

The design of the elevator calling button is simple by necessity. Like other public interfaces, all you need to understand is the concept of simplicity.

I find myself in these kind of situations, where I...

2010-06-22T21:31:03.832Z

I find myself in these kind of situations, where I have to decide what normal people would do, quite regularly, but I don't think there's anything ambiguous about the situation you described. The very fact that two buttons exist means that they can't be to control the direction of the elevator, as this would require only one single button: a "come to my floor" one. (Of course, this is assuming that the person who programmed the elevator made it "understand" basic maths such as 3 < 5.)

A situation I came across the other day that I do think is ambiguous is where you have a (web)page displaying a subset of a set of results that are ordered chronologically, descending. (Examples include forum/blog posts, orders made through a certain website etc.) What do "next" and "previous" mean? Next/previous in order or in time. Usually they mean the former, but I've seen the latter being used as well.

Isn't it necessary to have two buttons in orde...

2010-06-22T20:25:30.818Z

Isn't it necessary to have two buttons in order to minimize in-elevator wait time, avoid directional conflict and confusion?

Consider:

You are on the 5th floor, wanting to go down to the Ground floor. There is only one button (the "Call" button) so you press it.

The elevator arrives with a group of people travelling from the Ground floor to the top floor. You enter (not realizing what direction it travels) and press "G".

What direction does the elevator travel? Up or Down? Obviously it would continue up, because that's the direction it has to travel to drop off the people already on the elevator.

There has to be two buttons for an elevator. Otherwise you will be forced to face the scenario outlined above, which would be horrible.

@Manni I think that's an excellent idea. I'...

2010-06-22T19:57:25.234Z

@Manni I think that's an excellent idea. I've seen it done in the SZ tower in Munich, Germany where I used to work. There were three elevators on either side of the corridor with a touch screen in the middle. Upon touching the number of your destination floor the system assigns an elevator to your journey and displays where to wait for 'your' elevator. (this is what it looks like: http://bit.ly/9Ppunk and the screen: http://bit.ly/cXyGR0) There's nothing else to do for you but boarding the elevator when it arrives and leaving it when you reached your destination while being entertained by a TV screen inside the elevator. It worked really well, I found it very intuitive and a pleasant user experience. I wish this system was used more elsewhere. I love it because it's so simple and I think it solves this ancient problem very elegantly.

@admin Not if you type in the destination floor&#...

2010-06-22T19:53:30.903Z

@admin

Not if you type in the destination floor's number on a keypad. (Which is what, I think, @manni was trying to say.)

A UI should be about allowing a user express their intents. e.g. I want to go to floor X

@John, @Manni- Actually, I recently visited a hot...

2010-06-22T19:48:04.150Z

@John, @Manni-

Actually, I recently visited a hotel in New Orleans that does exactly that: there are number pads on every floor, and riders must enter the number of the floor they want to reach. The system processes the request and then tells the rider which elevator car to board.

It was unbelievable how much confusion this created.

It seems people have a "behavior bias" that impacts how they interact with elevators. People jumped on elevators as the doors were closing, expecting to enter their destination once on board, only to discover the car would only make "scheduled" stops. People get on the "wrong" cars because they couldn't remember where they had been instructed to go.

It was amusing to say the least, and clear reminder that simple systems are often easier for users than systems that offer more "control."

When a single set of control buttons operates more...

2010-06-22T19:37:53.780Z

When a single set of control buttons operates more than one elevator, 'up' and 'down' are required, since you can order 'up-elevators' and 'down-elevators'. The ones you haven't ordered can continue their journeys, when you wait for the elevator that goes in your preferred direction.

When a single set of control buttons operators just one elevator, I think both buttons are still required. This is why:

Since most people prefer to wait for an elevator rather then be in it, I think elevator shouldn't just pick up all waiting people and then go, say 20 floors, up before going 22 floors down. The both buttons help waiting people to order the elevator of their linkings, and thus decreasing the time you have to be in an elevator to a minimum.

I hope my comment is clear since English is not my mother tongue.