In most elevators around the world, there are buttons to keep the doors open and also to get them to close. I've only seen symbols on them. Once, however, in the US, one gentleman got in, and instead of pressing the close button, pressed on the open button. So the doors, which were just going to close, opened again.
He complained - Why do they have these symbols, why can't they they just write Open and Close?
I've wondered about this every since - is it an American thing to have an expectation to have text everywhere? I have never heard anyone complain about those symbols before or since!
Call me crazy, but those icons are not different enough to be quickly readable. If the open and close icons on the elevator were distinct from one another words wouldn't be necessary, but the exact same icons rotated 180 degrees are indeciperable at a glance.
It takes noticeable processing time to know which is which. Especially with a button that you need to hit as quickly as possible to hold the door for someone, those icons should be widely different from one another. I can't count the number of times I've meant to hit the open button to hold the elevator for someone only to accidentally hit the close button just in time to make eye contact with the person we've left behind.
The open button looks like closed doors and the close button looks like open doors. I have to look at the symbols carefully and interpret the arrows every time. Or tell myself that the buttons do the opposite of what they look like at a glance. "open" and "close" would be easier.
He complained - Why do they have these symbols, why can't they they just write Open and Close?
I've wondered about this every since - is it an American thing to have an expectation to have text everywhere? I have never heard anyone complain about those symbols before or since!