Why Norman Doors shouldn’t be normal doors
As you walk through door after door in the MacKinnon building to get to your class, you may notice something peculiar about those particular doors. (And if you’re anything like me, you find this something to be really bothersome). On nearly every door there is either a “Push” or “Pull” sign indicating which way the door opens. These types of doors are known as “Norman Doors,” a term coined by Don Norman, the author of The Design of Everyday Things. To put it in layman’s terms, for doors to qualify as Norman Doors, you can’t tell how to open them by just looking at them, which causes many to push on a pull door and vice versa.
These types of doors are everywhere in MacKinnon and make many students, including myself, open the door the wrong way, which then forces us to make a shameful second attempt at what should be a seemingly mindless action. Opening a door should be just that: a mindless action. When you go to open a door, you shouldn’t have to think: “Now how am I going to open this door?” You should just be able to do it. Norman Doors don’t agree with this way of thinking, however.
Moving away from this spiel on Norman Doors to a less pressing, but still important, issue is the fact that some rooms in Rozanski have signs on their doors stating that the door handles don’t turn, and sure enough, they don’t. My question is why? Perhaps there is a logical reason, but I can’t think of one. And so it remains a mystery.
Photo by Alora Griffiths/The Ontarion