How to Avoid Norman Doors

If you’ve ever had a run-in with a badly designed swing door, where you’re not sure if you should be pushing or pulling - you’ve encountered a Norman Door.

Designing a well-functioning swing door is straightforward:

• Use a bar on the side that needs pulling.
  

• Use a flat metal plate on the side that needs pushing.

People are trained to operate doors like that without having to think.

It's automatic.

But surprisingly often the people designing doors ignore (or don't know) these rules.

They'll place a bar on both sides.

So now everybody that approaches the push side naturally pulls only to find their way blocked.

And now something simple and automatic becomes a small challenge.

After a few moments of cognitive dissonance and frustration they will eventually open the door, but will feel very silly as a result.

When you find yourself wrestling with a Norman Door, be comforted by the fact that you're not actually an idiot.

Blame the designer!

And once you know about Norman Doors you’ll spot them and similar issues everywhere.

Lots of great intentions that result in terrible experiences.

Human-centred design

Norman Doors are a prime example of what happens if you design without observation.

Everything looked great to the designer.

But they didn’t observe how people use the doors in real life.

If they had, the problem would have been immediately obvious.

You have to make the human (the user) a core part of the development process.

You need to be able to observe how they interact with your service.

You can't skip the Observe stage.

You need feedback.

Every day people are designing things to the best of their abilities.

They’re developing new services, new products, new business ideas.

Surprisingly few are tested with observation.

So make sure you avoid Norman Doors in your business.

Get testing and observing.

Putting customers’ needs first leads to better experiences and improved business outcomes.