Elevator control panels
by John J. BARTHOLDI IIIDesigners of user interfaces: The elevator industry needs you! Behold the evidence.
Panel layout
As an untrained user of elevators, it seems to me that you want three basic things from an elevator control panel:
- Tell me what my choices are.
- Allow me to signal my choice.
- Confirm my choice by some feedback so I will not fret.
Is that so hard?
Here is what I have learned:
- Yes, apparently that is too hard.
- Hospitals are a rich source of bad design.
- There is a world of opinions about how floors below ground should be labeled
- Most users just want to select a floor, but it is common to litter the panel with various special purpose and little-used buttons.
- No one can recognize the standard open-door icon quickly enough to prevent the door from shutting in the face of a would-be passenger. And the button might not be connected anyway!
- The best panels are simple and obvious. It is even better when the layout of the buttons reveals the layout of the building.
A note on terminology: The basic element of style here seems to be a “button”. Some buttons are switches and some are just tags; but for our purposes they are all “buttons”.
Click on any image to enlarge it.
Worst panel in the world?
- Location
- South parking deck of Piedmont Hospital, Atlanta, GA (USA)
- General comments
-
A masterpiece of bad design. Most remarkably, each floor is associated with no fewer than four separate buttons, each of which provides just one of the essential functions. From left to right:
- The label, painted in a color to be associated with the floor and giving the name of the color in both English and Braille
- An inactive button colored to match the floor - but with the color missing for the brown, white, tan, and (possibly) black buttons
These first two buttons do nothing but identify the choices of floor. Furthermore, it appears that the worded labels were added later, perhaps after it was realized that people might not be able to distinguish some colors or remember them or give accurate directions to others (was that tan or mocha or ecru?)
- A white button that actually transmits your choice to the elevator mechanism;
- A small strip of light that confirms your choice (you can see this glowing above the white button for the orange floor).
The column of white buttons on the far right are inactive. Among the active buttons, the floor levels increase diagonally upward, alternating to the right and left.
- Door open/close
- At the very bottom are the open door, alarm bell, and close door buttons identified by icons. Above the alarm bell is a button labelled “hold door open” — is this different from the “open” door button?
- Floors below ground
- This design gives no clue as to the outside world.
Simple and clear
- Location
- Elevator to parking decks of the Temasek Tower, Singapore.
- General comments
- A nicely designed panel. It is simple and obvious. The layout of the buttons suggest the relationship of the floors to each other. The open/close-door buttons are separated from the choose-floor buttons so they are easy to find. The rarely-used buttons for elevator administration have been hidden.
- Door open/close
- The open/close-door buttons improve on the standard icon by showing TWO vertical lines to represent two doors. Furthermore, these icons provide additional visual distinctions in that the distance between the vertical lines is different in the two and they are in different colors.
- Floors below ground
- B1 is the first below ground. Presumably deeper floors would be B2, B3, and so on.
Left-to-right, then up
- Location
- Near the central library at the National University of Singapore
- General comments
- These buttons increase first to the right and then up (compare with Fraser Suites). The layout is primarily horizontal even though all travel is vertical.
- Door open/close
- Standard icons but the placement, with Door Open on the right, is reversed from standard.
- Floors below ground
- Not applicable
Right-to-left, then up
- Location
- Holiday Inn, Monterrey, Mexico
- General comments
- It is unusual to find floor numbers increasing from right to left. Least-used buttons are at the top.
- Door open/close
- Door-close is located more conveniently than the more urgent door-open button.
- Floors below ground
- Not applicable
Up, then left-to-right
- Location
- Fraser Suites, Singapore
- General comments
- The floor levels increase first up and then to the right. I was constantly fooled by the fact that the button for floor 16 is at the very bottom, well below that for floor 5.
- Door open/close
- Standard icons but distinguished by color to help cue the user
- Floors below ground
- Not applicable
Only left-to-right
- Location
- Upscale hotel in Reykjavik, Iceland>
- General comments
- Nice buttons, but they increase in a single row from left to right, suggesting horizontal travel.
- Door open/close
- Perhaps the two buttons on the upper left?
- Floors below ground
- Not sure: What does “K” signify?
Reflecting the outside world
- Location
- Great World City, a shopping mall in Singapore
- General comments
- There are six buttons but actually only 4 levels: B1 is the same as floor 2; and B2 is the same as floor 1. The arrangement of buttons reflects the outside world: They show that the the parking garage stands beside the mall but the floors do not match exactly.
- Door open/close
- Interesting variations on the standard icons. The triangles here are fully depicted as arrows showing direction of movement. Notice the standing person in the door-open icon.
- Floors below ground
- Decreasing numerically with prefix “B”.
Odd selection
- Location
- Lobby of the Temasek Tower, Singapore
- General comments
- This panel is noteworthy for the unusual selection of floors it presents: B2, 1, 31, and 42-50.
- Door open/close
- Much more informative than standard icons. Easily distinguishable but the placement of the functions, with Door Open on the right, is reversed from standard.
- Floors below ground
- B2. Where is B1?
Puzzling floor indicators
- Location
- Delta Airlines terminal of Los Angeles International Airport
- General comments
-
An opaque set of choices. I asked a Delta Airlines employee to interpret these for me. She said that everyone found it confusing and so she tapes interpretations to the panel, but the airport personnel remove them.
- “M” for Mezzanine
- “P” for Planes
- “O” for Operations
- “C” for Chunnel, which is actually a tunnel. No one could explain the name.
- Door open/close
- Standard icons
- Floors below ground
- It is impossible to relate this panel to the outside world.
More puzzling floor indicators
- Location
- North parking deck of Piedmont Hospital, Atlanta, GA
- General comments
- These buttons assume you understand the overall layout of the hospital complex and the history of its construction: This parking deck was the first one built North of the original deck, hence the prefix N. This labeling is inconsistent with the south parking deck, where floors are distinguished by color and are not prefixed with S.
- Door open/close
- Standard icons
- Floors below ground
- NB, for North Basement perhaps?
Door open or door close?
- Location
- Near the central library of the National University of Singapore
- General comments
- A clean layout, but the button labels are scarcely legible (they are 1, 2, 3).
- Door open/close
- DO and DC: These made sense to me only after I studied both of them, which, since they are separated, requires more than a glance. Furthermore, the C in DC looks very much like the O in DO. Finally the placement of the functions reverse the typical placement in which Door Open is on the left and Door Close on the right. There is little chance you could figure this out in time to prevent the doors from shutting on a would-be passenger.
- Floors below ground
- Not applicable
Hospital incomprehensibility
- Location
- Building 105 of the Piedmont Hospital complex in Atlanta, GA (USA)
- General comments
- Even though buttons are in rectangular array, subarrays help improve the readability.
- Door open/close
- Standard icon
- Floors below ground
- C and B seem to count up to the ground floor; or do they stand for something, such as Catacombs and Basement? Should there be an A? The ground floor is starred, which is helpful. In this case the ground floor is named 1, following the US convention.
More hospital parking incomprehensibility
- Location
- Parking garage of the Crawford Long Hospital complex in Atlanta, GA (USA)
- General comments
- Where is A? What are the colored buttons to the right and left?
- Door open/close
- Standard icon
- Floors below ground
- It is impossible to relate this to the outside world. Hospitals and parking do not do well together.
Negative numbers!
- Location
- Offices of the Agency for Science, Technology, and Research (A*STAR), Singapore (Thanks to Paul Goldsman for finding this.)
- General comments
- A clean, helpful layout
- Door open/close
- Similar to the standard icons except that the vertical lines, which represent the edges of the doors, have been omitted.
- Floors below ground
- As befitting an organization of scientists and engineers, the floor below 1 is -1. But where is 0?
Hard to read
- Location
- Concorde Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- General comments
- Forcing buttons into one large, uniformly-spaced rectangular array makes this hard to read, especially since little-used control buttons are given equal weight as floor buttons.
- Door open/close
- Standard icons
- Floors below ground
- Follows the European convention of labeling ground floor G; and numbering floors above; but adopts a different convention for floors below: LL, which is presumably Lower Lobby.
What do I press?
- Location
- Asian Civilizations Museum, Singapore
- General comments
- This panel presents 13 button elements but the museum has only two floors! You are on one of them; push the OTHER button if you can find it.
- Door open/close
- The buttons are labeled “Door open” and “Door close”. Furthermore they are located next to the Alarm and Stop buttons, which would be easy to press by mistake.
- Floors below ground
- Not applicable
Huh?
- Location
- Monterey Plaza Hotel, Monterey, California
- General comments
- Incomprehensible. Three different numbering schemes, one increasing, another decreasing, and the third doing both (or neither).
- Door open/close
- Standard
- Floors below ground
- I do not know. What does “F” signify?
Catering to the superstitious
- Location
- Office Tower of the Emory Crawford Long Hospital complex in Atlanta, GA (USA)
- General comments
- Bowing to ignorant superstition, the hospital — a university hospital! — pretends there is no 13th floor.
- Door open/close
- Standard icon
- Floors below ground
- It is hard to tell: The floors are labeled G, L, 2, and so on. Is G the Ground floor? Or is it L, which is starred?