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Prototype Iteration
Express Option:
One of our users was uncertain whether to press the emergency exit button to deal with a medical emergency because she didn’t think it would be a good idea to exit the elevator. She wanted to return to the lobby as quickly as possible. We hadn’t previously mentioned to the users that we would continue to include the callbox in our elevators. We also chose to include a system in the lobby for building officials to override the floor delegation algorithm to force one elevator to become an express to a particular floor.
Reversed Floor Order Inside Elevator:
Some users were confused by the descending floor numbers inside the elevator when the two outside interfaces both had ascending floor numbers. We agreed this might be confusing and reversed the order.
Buttons:
We realized the lobby interface (Figure 1) on every floor in the elevator’s path should display all subsequent floors the elevator will visit as available floors. For example, if the elevator is starting at the first floor and visiting floors four, nine, and ten, the lobby interface on floor four should display floors nine and ten as floors the elevator will visit and the interface on floor nine should display floor ten. This is a behavior the system should have had from the beginning to optimize use for large numbers of people, but one that was not initially included since we had never tested with more than one user, so the interfaces the user was not viewing were not considered as thoroughly.
Write Out ETA:
Some users were initially a little confused by “ETA” and said it would be easier to understand if we wrote Estimated Time of Arrival instead.
Labeling the Map:
Some users did not initially understand what the map was. Although all agreed that it would be easier to understand if they were standing in a lobby with a corresponding layout, most also thought we should label the map somehow.