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A new category of doors with bad design

Heard about Norman Doors? We got something new causing trouble.

Kalpesh Prithyani
UX Collective
Published in
4 min readJun 17, 2019

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Check out these images of a door.

Left image: front side. Right image: back side

Do you see the problem?

Imagine walking to up to this door and giving it a push to open, guess what happens next? It opens, right? Yes, but along with that, it hits on the head of the person standing behind who is also trying to open the door by pulling it.

While we can perfectly predict that to open this door we have to give it a push (from the front side, based on the metal thing at the top and the door frame), we can’t see someone else standing behind it.

But the other person is pulling the door, why would it hit him? why would there be any problem? Because normally a person pushes with a greater force than he pulls with. And without knowing if someone else is on the other side also trying to open the door, he might use his full force to do the task. The situation gets more critical if the person behind the door is talking to someone or focusing on something else.

You might not face this problem on a daily basis, it is more common in places with busy hallways on both sides of the door. For example, in an office. The photos above are of my office, on one side we have the work area and on the other, there is cafeteria and the restroom. So this is a door we use every day many times, hoping there won't be anyone on the other side.

Solution?

1. A see-through door

Using doors made of glass or any other transparent material can help the person at one side see if someone is coming from the other side of the door. This will alert them beforehand and they can pass by easily. Even a small window in the door (like the ones they use in restaurant kitchens) could help.

Kitchen door. Credit: www.trafficdoorsandmore.com

2. Doorknob

Have you paid attention to what happens when you turn a doorknob? Firstly you can hear the sound of its mechanics working on both sides of the door. And if that is too subtle for you, both the sides of the doorknob rotate together equally, giving away clear hint that someone is on the other side. This is true for both door handles and door knobs.

Door Handle knob. Credit: Khairul Nizam/pexels

3. Sliding doors

This can be a foolproof plan, but it won't be viable in every case. They need more space, more budget and something more waiting time for the door to open. Also, it has to be automatic otherwise no one cares to close it.

Manual Sliding door. Credit: shannonrphillips/pixabay

But why can’t we avoid wooden doors altogether? Noise! Wooden doors are very good at noise reduction. In our office, that door proofs the work area from the noise of the cafeteria. What we can do instead is to provide a glass window in between the door to see through.

Doors are one of the most common things we deal with every day, but they are still ignored by even the best of the interior designers out there. Aesthetics is considered such an important part of interior design, that somethings usability gets rolled over. Is user experience design only for the IT industry? Shouldn't we give slight thought towards things we use in our daily life?

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Written by Kalpesh Prithyani

Craftsman of Beautiful User Experience. Sharing my learning as I graduate from Design School.

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