I guess this exists at some places
Plus a mechanism that prevents the doors from opening too fast outwards (so they won't hit anyone)
edit: I seem to be misinformed about firecode. I may also be over extrapolating from what I know about bedroom doors as well. The general idea of obstruction is more valid there. It seems the more common reason bathrooms would not be allowed to swing outward is obstructing the minimum width of hallways.
From the 2018 international building code (which is what the US building code is based on): https://up.codes/viewer/illinois/ibc-2018/chapter/10/means-o...
> it is the International Building Code ... used in multiple locations worldwide, including the 15 countries of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), Jamaica, and Georgia. Furthermore, the IBC has served as the basis for legislative building codes in Mexico, Abu Dhabi, and Haiti, among other places.
Wow! I've never known a pub with a 'bathroom'.
Whist those in the USA use euphemisms such has 'bathroom' (mate, where is the bath?) or 'restroom' (I don't need a rest, I need a shit), here it is perfectly acceptable to ask the butler in Buckingham palace where the toilet is, or the bog for that matter. :-)
However every one of those doors had the same handle on both sides, giving you no clue as to which scenario this door was providing. You saw people pull/push the wrong way all the time, and then look up/to the side to see the hinges and where the door stop was. I eventually mentally dubbed that quiet look upwards before you touched a door the, “squarespace peek”.
After a while I’d heard that the original plans had the typical plate and handle for push/pull and the ceo felt like it messed with the design of the doors.
Another tricky thing is figuring out how to flush the public toilets. The user interface is non standard on every toilet. The most surprising way I've encountered was to step on a button on the floor. (Remember to never press the big green button)
One of my greatest fears :p I saw someone do that one time actually, and the door that the button opened was really slow moving and irreversible until it had completed opening fully. This was on a train, with all of the passenger seats facing the door in question. The guy that did it had to quickly pull his pants up and then stand there awkwardly while the door finished opening so that he could close it again.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38660860
Although it probably takes a few years for all toilets to be replaced...
Is that one that automatically opens the door, or one which automatically starts a full wash of the entire toilet cabinet's interior?
Sometimes the button is red, but it can be any color, sometimes it looks like a flush button.
I hate that we don't have a universal way to encode and decode how to use doors/buttons/levers.
First time I went to Japan I walked up to my hotel late at night. I went to the door. There was no handle or obvious way to open it. I stood there like an idiot for a minute or two. I walked back out to the street to make sure I'm at the right building. I walked back to the door and finally got it. The trick... you have to wave your hand directly in front of the door an inch or two. Places in Japan often do not put the motion sensor ahead of the door, but straight down. You start feeling like a Jedi at times, waving doors open.
See eg: https://youtu.be/MfQkeIf2IjA
The next day my debugging instinct kicked in, I bought some PUSH stickers and did some covert guerrilla ergonomic stickering. Problem solved and it made me smile every time I went past that cafe!
Also somewhat related, I hate road signs written on the road that read bottom up.
Everyone always nods at this but often do something else in practice, so as an example I use the real-world example of glass doors that only open one way but have identical pull handles on both sides. Users always walk up and loudly and embarrassingly push/pull incorrectly. But instead of fixing the root problem, the people who put them in think, “I know, I will document them!” and put those plaques on each side that says “Push/Pull”. And true to nature, no one reads the signs and still loudly bangs the door the wrong way only then to look at the “documentation”.
[1]: https://99percentinvisible.org/article/norman-doors-dont-kno...
That book changed my life.
Totally agree. Anyone that designs things to be used by other people, would be well-served, reading that book.
Our office door has this metal plate, it pushes outside (I believe it is that way for fire safety reasons). If there is strong wind on the outside, the door has the habit of whipping around after pushing it a bit, leading to shattered glass once every year or so.
Closing the door in strong wind also means grabbing it on the edge and pulling it, the wind kind of reverses on the last couple inches, I have no idea how that did not lead to broken fingers yet (you do it once, then you never try to close it again).
I guess it's a failing to consider all use cases of the door, and the metal plate thing should only be used indoors.
Unless, maybe, the plate is copper?
You can push them with a covered elbow as well, of course.
The only affordance of such a plate is its push-ability, and the fact that someone actively installed a metal plate (instead of just relying on the door's natural flatness), as well as its location at the point of maximum leverage (all the way to the right of the door, in the door's vertical center), is a clear signifier for such push-ability.
Not only that, but it does its job without offering any other confusing affordances (such as a vertical handle which is also technically pushable, but which many would interpret as being meant to be pulled).
Whenever I need a relatable, succinct example of affordances and signifiers for my engineering comrades, I turn to this one. Anyone interested in design is doing themselves a dis-service by not reading Don Norman's classic.