Products · Pattern or everyday thing
Elevator buttons
Raised as a usability problem by 8 people on Hacker News over 17 years (2010–2026), in 10 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 10 complaints
- Button symbols are hard to decipher quickly, causing hesitation when someone is about to miss the elevator2026-01-23
- Open and close icons look nearly identical, so people hit close by mistake2025-12-09
- Close button does nothing when pressed, with no immediate response2023-03-14
- Newer elevator buttons are confusing for people used to classic systems2023-01-08
- No way to cancel or undo a wrongly pressed floor2023-01-07
- Close button often doesn't work, and the broken state goes unnoticed for a long time2019-01-25
- Close door button often disabled, delayed, or broken, so it doesn't work when pressed2017-09-28
- Door close button behaves inconsistently, so users can't predict whether pressing it does anything2011-10-04
- Door-close buttons do nothing, so pressing them gives no effect or control2010-11-08
- Up and down call buttons are placed inconsistently, side-by-side or with up below down2010-10-26