Prototype Photos
#1: Lobby Display: This display is located around the lobby area. On this interface, we have physical buttons on the right ordered from low to high starting in the bottom left going towards the upper right (mirroring traditional elevator buttons inside elevators. We also have a touch screen on the bottom right where users can write the floor they want to get to. Above the touch screen is a map that shows which elevator a user should go towards to get to their floor.
#2: Display above elevator: One of these displays is located above each elevator. For each floor an elevator has in its queue, the corresponding button above the elevator is lit up. To the right of the buttons, the floors in the queue are listed. To the left of the buttons, the estimated time until the elevator arrives is displayed.
#3: Display inside elevator
Briefing
We created a new elevator interface. We’re going to walk you through scenarios and look at how users will interact with our new interface. If you want to stop at any point in time, just let us know, and that’ll be fine.
Imagine that you’ve just walked into a high-rise building — let’s say it’s got 50 floors. You walk into the lobby, and there are 6 elevators — 3 on the left and 3 on the right. You walk in and you see this display (show interface of main lobby display). This display is found on every floor.
Scenario Tasks
Task 1:
The user must figure out how to use the lobby floor select interface (Figure 1) to indicate the floor they would like to access.
Task 2:
The user must find the elevator that will take them to their desired floor given the information displayed on the lobby floor select interface (Figure 2) and the interface above the elevators (Figure 2).
Task 3:
The user was asked to interpret the information displayed on the interface above the elevator (Figure 2).
Task 4:
Another person in the elevator has a panic attack. The user is asked how they would deal with the situation. The idea was to see how they would react and how they would utilize the interface to achieve what they wanted to do.
Task 5:
In task 4, most users elected to use the emergency exit button. If they chose this option, the elevator would be temporarily out of service. They had to figure out how to get back to their original target floor.
Observations
Button order: The low-to-high button order on the outside panel, which is implemented in virtually all existing elevators, confused some of our users. 2/6 of our users asked us why the buttons started at the top of the panel instead of the bottom, and it took them several seconds to locate their button.
ETA: The screen inside the elevator which displayed an estimated time to arrival wasn’t clear enough for some users; they weren’t able to identify what the screen displayed, despite the “ETA” label. A clearer label might help.
Emergency stop button: When one of our users had to deal with a medical emergency, she wasn’t sure whether to press the emergency exit button, or to try and contact the police immediately. She also noted that it would be best in some emergency situations to travel express to the first floor, rather than to exit at the closest floor.
When one of our users got into the elevator, she looked for buttons on the wall, and didn’t know what to do when she didn’t find them. This was even after she had pressed the button for her floor in the lobby.
One user felt uncomfortable not knowing what floor she was currently on, said she felt “trapped”
Most users were able to get the elevator to stop in a medical emergency, but were confused at what to do next. When does the elevator start again? Will it remember the floors it had previously been headed to?
The function of the map was unclear to two of our users. They didn’t understand what the points on the map represented.