How hard can it be to open a door?

Harder than you might think ...

Last week, I was working at a client's facility, a maze deep inside an old industrial building. It had old doors everywhere, many of them enhanced with an electronic lock system, so doors could be opened using a chipcard. I did not bother looking at that system in detail, I just followed our host and my collegue through doors after doors. After we had finished our work, we got our stuff out of the little room we were working in, and into a small corridor. We got rid of the required protective clothing, and were ready to leave. But the way out was blocked by a door with an electric door lock. Just using the door handle did not work.

So, what you you do? Right next to the door is an electric panel with some switches, probably for the lights in the corridor. And a nice button, illuminated with a red light bulb or some red LEDs. No text, no symbols anywhere. Red light as in "stop" on a traffic light, indicating that the door is locked, and you should not try to crash through it. Now think of the illuminated buttons in the train. You press that button that begs for attention.

It beeps, once. The door unlocks. And it beeps again. And again. Very loud, very annoying. And it does not stop. It did not beep that loud and that often when we entered. I've triggered an alarm. Oops.

About 10 seconds later, some worker from the next room comes out and is really pissed of, because of the alarm. I pressed the f***ing emergency unlock button!

So, what would have been the correct way to open the door? Obviously NOT the door handle, because the electronic lock system keeps the door closed. Not the button with the bright red light. You are not in a train here!

Well, the electric panel is white, the light switches are white, and the red button has a white frame. I don't remember any more details, but I looked at the next door's panel. There is another light switch on the panel that is not white, but silver. It looks like during the last decades, someone had to repair that panel and only had a silver light switch left in stock. This switch at the next door actually had a small label, probably from a small thermal label printer (Dymo or something like that). It read "Türoffner" - door opener.

You are supposed to ignore the illuminated button, and press the button that just looks misplaced, but intentionally has a different color.

I would bet a lot of money that I'm not the first one that has accidentally triggered the emergency unlock alarm. This user interface is just plain stupid. Starting with using the wrong emergency button. Anyone who has seen a big electrical machine knows the big red button in a yellow case for emergency use. That's an emergency button everyone knows. And for the unlock button, don't use a light switch from the junk tray next to other light switches. At least make it a standalone button. Put a big, engraved label on the button. Heck, put that button on the door. Or even better, make using the door handle unlock the electric lock system, and completely get rid of the regular unlock button.

And no, this is not my first electronic door lock system. Almost all of my employers used an electronic system, and none of those systems were that stupid.

Alexander