
“Ow-eee!” cried the Crocodile. “Help! Stop! Where am I?”
Roald Dahl – The Enormous Crocodile [amazon]
Is this the world’s worst elevator control panel?
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:
John J Bartholdi III
- Yes, apparently that is too hard…

John J. Bartholdi III has collected a treasure trove of delightfully terrible elevator panels with detailed commentary here. Recommended.
See also:
Design Matters (16): Singapore MRT maps
Design Singapore: Changi airport (1)
Design Matters (15): Bucket Bath Edition (Kiramas 0318 vs Trixy GN311)
Design matters (14): stackable 6 litre water bottle by Singha
Design Matters (13): Dark Patterns
Design Matters (12): IKEA Detergent Bottle
Design Matters (11): PowerPoint Wizardry
Design Matters (10): Your iPhone Moment
Design Matters (9): Bruce Tognazzini’s First Principles of Interaction Design [Radio Edit]
Design Matters (8): Where’s that file?
Design matters (7): Death by PowerPoint
Design matters (6): Bosch hand-blender attachment
Design Matters (5): the information architecture of a water dispenser
Design Matters (4): a recipe for trouble
Design Matters (3): Ingenious board game tile holder and embodied memory
Design Matters (2): badly designed Android Bluetooth menu
Design matters: refrigerator control dial
A well designed paper bag from Waitrose
Postbox: good info