I am taking an unusual course this semester that is titled “software engineering” but covers a much wider scope of not only software engineering, but common life problems. The instructor, Michael “Fantastic” Buckley, took a few days outside of the curriculum to discuss bad vs good design in everyday life. This really has made me think a lot about designs and how horrible they tend to be.
The ultimate bad design that has always slowed me down is here at the University at Buffalo. If you have any classes in the Natural Sciences Complex (NSC), you know exactly what I am going to be ranting about. Have you ever got caught in the after class rush hour traffic? (sorry, I had no better words). Whoever engineered the exit door for NSC into the surrounding buildings really designed it badly. There are two doors and a single file stair case (basically 1 lane coming up and 1 lane going down). Trying to push about 1000 people through that staircase at the same time results in HUGE backups and it usually takes me 5 minutes to get through that passage when leaving class late. Here is a picture of this design:
Another bad design at the University at Buffalo is the front lawn between Bell Hall and Bonner Hall. In this case, there is a sidewalk that runs about 150 feet in a square around this huge patch of grass. Diagonally, there is a really beaten path that is now showing only dirt. Unfortunately, whoever designed that path didn’t realize that putting a sidewalk through the center might be a good idea since the door to a building is about 20 feet from that diagonal path and most people going to it come from the exact opposite corner of that patch of grass. Note that a^2 + b^2 = c^2 and the hypotenuse (c) is obviously the shortest path and most people take the shortest path.
Now lets talk a little about door handles. Have you ever sprained your wrist because a door handle looked like a handle you pull, yet at that door, you push it? Or even yet, a door bar that you push but the door was actually meant to be pulled? I can give you many instances of this that occur on the University at Buffalo campus and I’m sure you could give me many examples also. Mike pointed out a really surprising but believable story. Between the math building and NSC, there is a tunnel that connects both buildings together. The doors open out of this tunnel and both sides of the doors have a pull handle. Someone entered this tunnel through one door and got trapped because he couldn’t pull and didn’t try to push the door open. This is truly a bad design and it could potentially scar people who got seemingly trapped. This is very similar to people who get trapped in an elevator once and never ride them again.
Naturally, I could go on and on about bad design so I’m going to stop ranting here. I am going to leave this little tidbit for you though: as you go through the day, how often do you hit a bad design such as the door handle and blame yourself for being stupid? I know I do it quite often. Mike pointed out that it really isn’t the case that I’m stupid, but rather, the person who designed what I’m doing wasn’t really thinking critically for real life application. So the next time you hit a bad design, blame the designer, not yourself!
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Tags: bad design, design, university at buffalo
Posted in Student Life
Philip,
This blog was most entertaining, and certainly true. I must applaud you again on your grammatically correct, concise, funny writing style. You must take after me –ha ha.
Um phil the doors do have signs that say wether to push or pull right? I am used to the school already so I cannot remember but since I worked in an awkward cafe I am used to reading the door signs. I completely agree with you on that path, the design is terrible.
I’m glad you pointed out the math department doors!
Didn’t Jim Javor use to ponder about which way those doors open up, back in Calculus class?