Intro to UX: the Norman door
NOTE: This piece was originally conceived as part of a limited series on design concepts for budding designers. A simple yet potent concept like the Norman door helps people grok design. That said, the post would not exist without The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman. If you learn anything here, I strongly recommend you go deeper.
Introductions to user experience design rarely miss an opportunity to talk about Norman doors. I love Norman doors! Well, I don’t love Norman doors, they’re the worst! What I love is the concept of the Norman door. Putting a name to a pattern really scratches an itch, doesn’t it?
The Norman door is basically any door that’s confusing or difficult to use. It was named after (and not by) design guru Don Norman to define this all-too-common design foible.
To determine if a door is “Norman,” ask yourself whether the door makes sense as you approach it. Grade it pass or fail. If you have to guess whether to push or pull, the door fails. If you can’t locate a place to push or pull, the door fails. If you try to push/pull and the door actually slides, the door fails.
Once you know how to spot a Norman door you’ll start seeing them everywhere!
It should be immediately apparent how to interact with the door, there are only a few reasonable options. Of course, there’s the possibility that you come up with a new way to open a door, but that’s almost literally reinventing the wheel. Creativity is cool, but usability wins every time. Undoubtedly, this new door would flout very well-established design heuristics — rules of thumb and common understandings of usability. Occasionally, we encounter a slight variation on the basics, but once a design starts failing heuristics assessments you can bet it’s causing unnecessary errors.
We know that doors have two end states, open and closed, and we should know immediately from context whether to push, pull, or slide. Knobs, handles, latches, plates, bars, and rails all give us hints as to how to use them. This hint, provided by an object’s shape and position, is called an affordance. (It is more correct to say an affordance is the relationship between the object’s properties and the person’s abilities.) A doorknob is intended to be gripped by a fist and thus affords both twisting of the wrist and pulling. A steering wheel affords gripping and spinning around a central axis (the steering column). Even scissors only really allow you to grip them one of a few ways and the affordance of “snipping” presents itself.
But not all things present with such austere purpose. When we make an error, we blame ourselves. “I should have pulled that door,” you thought. “It was my fault I pushed.” Wrong! It’s not your fault. The door “told” you to push even though it’s built to be pulled. You can rest assured you’re not overthinking this. Self-blame is a common sign of bad design. Remember not to blame yourself when you can’t figure out how to perform a “basic” action. How do you know something is poorly designed? You have a hard time using it.
If we generalize the concept, any product that confuses its users, causes errors, or functions counterintuitively is a Norman door of sorts. We can also just call this bad design. And we do.
