Elevators are, in a way, a heap of social and psychological problems stuffed into a box that moves up and down a lot. The article briefly acknowledges it, but like ~all such articles I read over the years, it's primarily interested in wait time and focuses on which quantile to minimize and how. But I'd love to know if and how the soft, squishy thing is being accounted for.
The core problem: elevators are frustrating for many reasons, and that frustration often manifests as hidden blame and hate towards other fellow passengers. Like, IDK, I'm sitting there with a stroller and a kid on floor -1, trying to get to the train platform at floor 0, but the elevator isn't coming because it's going back and forth between 0 and 2 and 3, as people who came by cars shuttle their luggage to and from the parking lot. As a city dweller and non-car person, I can feel my hatred towards cars and drivers bubbling up right there.
I imagine the same is felt by them if I manage to snatch the lift and go from 0 to -1, when they'd really love to already be on +2.
There's many other cases. Mall problems are different than train station problem, different than tall residential building problems, different than office building problems. Destination Dispatch is its own special thing, with its own special psychological twists. But two things I observed in general are:
- If there is a control element available, you will blame people for using it (even internally). Like, "I'd be there a minute ago if not for this damn XYZ who just had to press the button at exactly this time, and they weren't even going in this direction!"
- If there is an indicator element available, people will optimize around whatever it shows.
Like, someone gets at floor N, sees most of the buttons between there and their destination M lit up, immediately presses N+1 to get off there and call another elevator. But if the buttons are visible enough from outside the lift, they may just not get in in the first place, saving themselves and the others time and trouble, etc.
The more I think about it, the more I see that placement of buttons and indicators in the lift is in itself an UX engineering problem with unusually high impact of every decision on well-being of the users.
EDIT: Also ironically, and in line with my feeling that Star Trek got more things right than people give it credit for, a lot of elevator problems - both scheduling and social/psychological ones - would be solved if elevators just moved faster, like 2-4x faster than now, and also in some cases, also moved sideways. I.e. turbolifts.
(That, and if it didn't immediately led to the building owners putting less of them. So put another way: frustrating lifts is the sign of building owners/designers cheapening out.)
TeMPOraL · · focus · HN ↗
The core problem: elevators are frustrating for many reasons, and that frustration often manifests as hidden blame and hate towards other fellow passengers. Like, IDK, I'm sitting there with a stroller and a kid on floor -1, trying to get to the train platform at floor 0, but the elevator isn't coming because it's going back and forth between 0 and 2 and 3, as people who came by cars shuttle their luggage to and from the parking lot. As a city dweller and non-car person, I can feel my hatred towards cars and drivers bubbling up right there.
I imagine the same is felt by them if I manage to snatch the lift and go from 0 to -1, when they'd really love to already be on +2.
There's many other cases. Mall problems are different than train station problem, different than tall residential building problems, different than office building problems. Destination Dispatch is its own special thing, with its own special psychological twists. But two things I observed in general are:
- If there is a control element available, you will blame people for using it (even internally). Like, "I'd be there a minute ago if not for this damn XYZ who just had to press the button at exactly this time, and they weren't even going in this direction!"
- If there is an indicator element available, people will optimize around whatever it shows.
Like, someone gets at floor N, sees most of the buttons between there and their destination M lit up, immediately presses N+1 to get off there and call another elevator. But if the buttons are visible enough from outside the lift, they may just not get in in the first place, saving themselves and the others time and trouble, etc.
The more I think about it, the more I see that placement of buttons and indicators in the lift is in itself an UX engineering problem with unusually high impact of every decision on well-being of the users.
EDIT: Also ironically, and in line with my feeling that Star Trek got more things right than people give it credit for, a lot of elevator problems - both scheduling and social/psychological ones - would be solved if elevators just moved faster, like 2-4x faster than now, and also in some cases, also moved sideways. I.e. turbolifts.
(That, and if it didn't immediately led to the building owners putting less of them. So put another way: frustrating lifts is the sign of building owners/designers cheapening out.)