There are tons of badly designed doors. For example an oddly placed bar to keep design consistency or the door opening in the wrong direction. It’s hard to believe but there are two simple rules with doors:
- Doors in people’s home open inwards (the hinges are on the inside so it is not easy for burglars to just take off the door to enter the house).
- Door in public buildings need to open outwards or in the direction of fire exits (for safety reasons while evacuating the building).
However, it is not always easy to figure which is the right way (especially inside the public buildings where fire exits paths are not obvious). In such cases, the door needs clues so people handle them subconsciously. Take this door as a bad example.
Entering the corridor, I have two handles on both doors which suggest that I need to pull them. Everything fine here
When exiting the corridor (the same door) I have the same handles again! This would be fine if the doors would swing in both directions which is not the case. Obviously someone complained and they solved the issue with two small stickers over the handles which say "PUSH".
Whenever I exit the building I subconsciously grab the handle and pull. Then I realise that I need to push it. The sticker is of no help. Who reads manuals to open the door? Such simple things shouldn’t have manuals!
This can be easily solved by removing the handles. If there’s nothing to be pulled, people with instinctively push it.
