Those Things we use, but don’t Think About.

Designer Brian Scates, just for the hell of it (but, as often happens to many of us, driven by experiences), has put some time into analysing and reimagining the button panel found in most elevators or lifts.

Of course, not many of them are identical, but they almost always follow a formula. Whether they include a screen of some sort, or a fancy font, the general layout remains the same: a series of buttons organised by their corresponding floor number, with no weight given to the more important or frequently used floors.

I love this. Along with that airline ticket redesign that was doing the rounds online a while ago, and the hourglass traffic light concept, it’s these projects that really get me excited, analysing and reimagining the things we take for granted or simply never think about.

Even when the redesign proves initially or definitively to be inappropriate or untenable, these projects encourage us to remember that none of the man-made shit we see (and sometimes the natural shit) is perfect. Those more mundane aspects of our day to day lives that could stand to be tweaked if only people can be made to see it…

Top work, Brian.