Elevators should have undo buttons
Elevators are a perfect example of doing things the way we have always done them. And thus, causing a simple, but very annoying problem.
How many times have you gotten into an elevator and someone has pressed the wrong button? How many times have you pressed the wrong floor?
Wouldn’t it be great if there was simply an undo button. Hold it down and press the button for any floor that has already been selected. This will unselect the floor.
We probably didn’t have this feature in early elevators - or at least the first elevators that did not have an operator in them. Maybe the electronics of undo or cancel were simply too complicated. They aren’t too complicated today. It should be dead easy to program this in to most elevators.
Doing so would not only save time, but it would likely cause a big reduction in wasted stops, which in turn would reduce the cost of powering elevators. Undo buttons are green!
Why am I going on about this?
I am interested in this because undo button put more power in the hands of end users.
Some bureaucrat out there will doubtlessly ask “What if people keep canceling each other’s floors”? The answer is yes they might, but two people standing in an elevator should be able to work it out.
Enterprise IT organizations make the same mistake when they try to shut down internal initiatives, such as the use of blogs and wikis with inappropriate business questions like “What if Johnny writes the wrong thing in his blog”?
Just like the elevator designer who needlessly worries about people canceling out each other’s floor selections, Enterprise IT should not have to the power to stop a project because IT thinks that they are saving the business users from themselves. Imagine if Enterprise IT took away email based on the question of “What if Johnny writes the wrong thing in an email?”.
If you are a CEO, and your company is not in the business of making software, you need to keep your CTO and CIO in check. Ultimately, Enterprise IT provides enabling technology, just like the buildings and the lights. Their technology is significantly more complicated, but it is a means to an end, and not the end itself. Enterprise IT can highlight risks and costs with going with a certain type of technology, but Enterprise IT does not have enough information to weigh those risks against potential business rewards.
For example, if an IT initiative could add $1 million in value, does it make sense to cut that initiative because IT sees an additional $100K in costs? Of course not. But, if IT is left to make the decision, all they see is the increase in cost, or in another example, maybe an increase in risk, and the whole project gets cut because IT does not see the full risk reward picture.
So, Enterprise IT should give end users the Enterprise 2.0 tools they need, and, for the love of sanity itself, elevator designers have got to start adding undo buttons.
Here’s something else that’s needed - how do you throw out a garbage can? Seriously. I have a garbage can I’ve been trying to get rid of for months. Apparently my garbage men don’t read English (or Spanish) and can’t be bothered.
At last a public platform to say this: for years I’ve been wondering about the fact that in the US almost all lifts (elevators?) have ‘Close Door’ buttons, but in the UK, they are very rare. I’ve discussed it with a few people. I’ve used it as an analogy of the difference between the US and the UK. In the US it is normal to want to get on just that little faster. In the UK, we prefer to wait or turn, to be in the hands of the authorities. I guess it’s a classic user interface designed originally by the users.
I’ve noticed a few lifts recently in the UK(in an Accor hotel in Manchester) that do have ‘Close Door’ buttons, so maybe things are changing. Maybe we’re becoming a bit more like the Yanks!
“but two people standing in an elevator should be able to work it out.” Ah, but there’s the rub. The current elevator system is an ultimate equalizer. Each person’s desires are equal - no one (excepting fire or emergency personnel) can trump another and force the elevator to go to a higher floor first. If two people could be always work it out, then we would have no wars or political stand-offs. If we could de-select floors in elevators, the one with the most power in that elevator at that time could override all others. Only politeness or the threat of mob-rule in a really crowded elevator could prevent this from happening.
No, leave the elevators as they are. I like being equal with my elevator-riding peers.
Early elevators used to have ‘undo’ button however I don’t think that was designer’s original intention. When control panel in elevators was only electro-mechanical you pushed a floor and that button will be latched and depressed. You pull it up it’s unselected, simple and beautiful.
In fact, some lifts in Hong Kong do have the undo feature. If you double click a previously pressed button, the light would go off and undo the selection.
I used to work in the Uptown Bank building in Chicago, a wonderful 1930s art-deco edifice with the kind of electro-mechanical elevator panels that sfong describes. I didn’t often need to pull the button out, but it was quite handy when needed. This was over 15 years ago. I wonder if it has been “upgraded” since then.