HCI Show & Tell : Doorbells
by Jeremy Pharo
Don Norman's Design Principles (the good, the bad, & the ugly):
Summary: Most doorbells do a good job of affording usage. "There's a button to push". They also usually have great visibility. "Hey, there's a button". However, feedback can vary. Some doorbells do not light up or go dark once pushed. Also, sometimes you cannot hear the bell after it has been pushed.
Gold Doorbells:
LEFT: Bad visibility. You may not know it is a doorbell because the button is a nut.
RIGHT: Constraint and bad visibility. You have to move the cover out of the way to hit the button.
Multicolor/Space-age:
ABOVE: These doorbells do not fit the cultural "norm" of what a doorbell should look like.
Also, the red one gives off a cultural constraint because red signifies danger or emergency.
Apartment building doorbells:
ABOVE: These doorbells demonstrate good mapping because it is easy to associate which
occupant is tied to each doorbell. A good example of recognition is used with the use of name labels.
Silver Bells:
ABOVE: These doorbells have bad contrast with the color choice of silver-on-silver. These doorbells also have an unexpected mapping scheme. The buttons are laid out like a table, so if you were trying to find the doorbell for apartment C4, you first find C on the top column and go down to row #4, which is actually the 5th row of buttons down! My recommendation would be to order the number buttons from 1-8 instead of 8-1 because people in Western cultures read from top to bottom & left to right. You also have to use recall in this case to remember the apartment you are going to, as there are no names listed next to the bells.
Silly:
ABOVE: Self-explanatory...if you realize it is a doorbell. Also, it may leave you wondering if monks will answer the door once rung.