A transcript of Episode 291 of UX Podcast. James Royal-Lawson and Per Axbom are joined by Reetta Ranne and Jussi Hiltunen to discuss the design process for elevators and the broader topic of people flow in urban environments.

This transcript has been machine generated and checked by Simon Axbom.

Transcript

Per Axbom
From time to time we will bring you a repeat show. This is an episode from our extensive back catalogue resurfacing some of the ideas and thoughts from the past that we believe are still relevant and well worth revisiting. In this UX podcast classic, we learn about the complexities of elevator design, lots of food for thought and things to keep in mind for the next time we decide to critique an elevator button panel.

Computer voice
UX podcast episode 291.

[Music]

James Royal-Lawson
You’re listening to UX podcast coming to you from Stockholm, Sweden. We are your hosts James Royal-Lawson.

Per Axbom
And Per Axbom.

James Royal-Lawson
With listeners in 175 countries from Sri Lanka to India.

Per Axbom
Now this is an episode that will be valuable to all designers but also to anyone who has ever ridden in an elevator. Or as James would say, a lift. We are joined by Reetta Ranne and you’ll see Hiltunen both senior UX design specialists at corner in Finland.

James Royal-Lawson
Kone, I’m gonna say Kone is a global leader in the lift ok… levator and escalator industry. And they also work with OtterBox, turnstiles, doors and various different software and applications related to them.

Per Axbom
And in this interview, we’ll learn more about the research timelines lifecycles and cultural challenges of bringing elevators from ideas to buildings. Thank you for joining us, and just could you just briefly introduce yourself and your job titles?

Reetta Ranne
And yes, so I’m Reetta Ranne and I’m working as a senior user experience specialist. So basically I’m doing user research in different r&d projects.

Jussi Hiltunen
I’m Jussi Hiltunen. I’m designing the user experiences. So I started working as a GUI designer, but then this scope has evolved and nowadays, it’s the user experience of the field. So really much a hands on design doer. But also having this kind of strategic mindset.

Per Axbom
Awesome. So your full scale business all by yourselves from research to design to deliver…

Jussi Hiltunen
Something like that.

James Royal-Lawson
Why don’t you start off by telling us what’s a what’s a typical design process for one of the lifts that we climb into?

Jussi Hiltunen
That’s a good good question. I think it follows pretty much the industry standards in the way that the design process is what you have in in other research and development environments. So, of course, we start from the inside inside of the customer and inside of the user need and then developing concepts, prototyping those with customers and users and testing out what it really is what they wanted, and it goes to the implementation. In brief, when we are in the global business, then this kind of like local variations are good to understand. So, everything should be taught from the local needs point of view, but then globalise it somehow productise them their solutions, so that we are able to adapt to those local needs. When you think about the users of the lifts then you can think that there are quite many, many of us who are using the lift. So millions and millions of users, which are coming from different backgrounds, from different cultures.

Reetta Ranne
Yeah, and I guess many times the lift is not that important to people, they don’t really want to be like… their goal is not to just use that lift.

Jussi Hiltunen
Yeah, exactly.

Reetta Ranne
But they are instead they are in a building, which is some certain kind of building so for example, a residential building and they’re coming there and their goal is to get to their home or visiting their friend or or going in a retail centre to some shop.

Jussi Hiltunen
So this sales journey is an important part from the UX point of view. We are baiting to this user journeys like in other industries also. And of course, then these touch points, is something what we are focusing on and then making some solutions throughout the whole journey. And the journey has been actually, from our point of view kind of extending later, yes, quite much. And also, from the company point of view, we are doing people flow solutions inside the building and also in between the buildings are also more than just the elevator, what we are thinking of as a complete solution.

James Royal-Lawson
Of course, because you’ve got the, you’ve got the interface you use to trigger a part of the journey. But when I guess when you’re planning the elevators and lifts in a building, then the level of the flow of people and the quantity of people at various stages across the entire journey is crucial for the for the experience of well, “has the lift worked to get me where I wanted in a timely fashion?”

Jussi Hiltunen
Yeah, exactly.

Reetta Ranne
Yeah. At the same time, we are interested in user experience of a single person and how easy and smooth it is for one person to use an elevator in a building. But at the same time, we need to be thinking about, all the people in the building and how when they are in a crowd coming in or moving in between the floors, how smoothly that goes. So we need to tackle these both kinds of problems.

Per Axbom
Yeah, I love how how complicated you now are describing that this process is because now you’re realising, it’s not just a box with buttons, is it? Because that’s what all what you see, you always think that it’s a box with buttons, “how different can it be?” But in talking about localised versions, flows, you’re saying that basically, the elevator is like Google, you don’t really want to use Google, you want to find what Google gives you. You want to go somewhere else. So I see the elevators now as being the Google, the physical, physical representation of Google. So but why are we so upset with elevators then? I mean, it’s it’s common for is it common for people to be upset in general? Or is it something that you think designers especially are when it comes to these physical objects?

Jussi Hiltunen
Can you actually elaborate more on that? What are you upset? Mo stly?

James Royal-Lawson
Oh you don’t want… don’t set us off. You’ll get a list.

Per Axbom
Well it’s usually, but usually, it’s just that simple. The thing we look at is the interface with the buttons. And sometimes the interface is outside the elevators. You walk inside elevator you go “Oh, my God, I forgot to press the floor”. Why would it be outside? Why isn’t it the same everywhere? Why are some buttons placed horizontally and not vertically? Why are the numbers different? Why is the 13 missing, but it’s where it should have been a 12. But it should have been opened before. It’s just, there are so many ways the buttons can go wrong. And sometimes there’s this close lift or closed closed doors button. Sometimes that doesn’t make it any shorter in time. It’s just a dead button that people…

James Royal-Lawson
Or sometimes you go in to the elevator and you can’t see screens because they’re placed at an angle, which is not visible from the entire lift. There’s this… It kind of feels like there’s always something when you go into an elevator to kind of trigger your UX spidey sense.

Reetta Ranne
Yeah, and I guess one. One aspect is also that at the same time, we have those new systems and user interfaces. And then we have those elevators that are 100 years old. And we have all these at the same time. So the whole technology is not, like changing so rapidly, as you might see in other industries as well. So we’re seeing like, all the stages and all that, from different tryouts that there has been throughout the years at the same time, and then you just have to, switch between those different ways of interacting with the elevator.

James Royal-Lawson
How long is the kind of normal lifespan of an elevator interface? In one that’s installed?

Jussi Hiltunen
That’s one core question I think in this, when we think about the lifecycle than earlier, the lifespan of the lift has been much longer, it can be… you can find those 100 year old lifts in use, of course, they might be modernised and so on. But when like also buildings are changing, you know faster and faster pace nowadays, so like offices are turned into hotels or vice versa or or then the offices needs to be renovated more frequently. Then also this solution should be much more modular so that we are able to keep up with the user and customer so that the tenants who are moving in they are able to get their service levels right.

And so, but coming back to this standard solution which you were in a way referring to earlier that what why there is so many variants, when we think also globally there are these kind of local standards, which are already setting them some rules for the interfaces that what kind of indications needs to be in with what kind of technology and in what location of the building, so they are borrowing a little bit, and they are also making it difficult to have just one interface which fits for all. But then again, like the code based solutions, also they are not necessarily the best solutions, they are standardised but then there are huge usability issues in those. But when you are making a code compliant solution, like customer may want to have that because that’s in a way, good for all. Anyway, setting some sort of bar for the accessibility issues and somehow inclusive solutions. But you could do so much better when you can go beyond those standards. And that’s in a way the dilemma what we are often facing that the customer needs, and the user needs are actually something more than this standard solutions are able to fulfil.

Reetta Ranne
Yeah, and many, many times the codes are for all the buildings. And I would like to more see how to respond to the user needs of different building segments. So for example, in the in the office, if you work there every day and you go there every day, you’re optimising your routes, you’re taking the shortcuts. So you want totally different kinds of information than for example, when you’re in a hotel, and then you try to find your hotel room and and you haven’t been there before. So it’s it’s totally different thing. And these codes are trying to get all the different kinds of buildings to like, like have a one solution that fits all, and it has to be a compromise in some sort.

James Royal-Lawson
Do you get chance to work with the implementation projects? I mean, it’s one thing designing the kind of global solutions, but do you do you get to work closely with the people who are actually going to do the final details of the will, if that’s going to be in the building?

Jussi Hiltunen
Yeah, sometimes, we are working more closely, and then sometimes more distantly. But it’s always good to have some piloting cases where you where you are really seeing the reality. And of course, we are doing lots of site visits, like we were now popping in in China, for example. And then you’ll see that reality that what are those… Where are those actually placed and how they function?

James Royal-Lawson
I mean we talk a lot about them in what in the web design world, we’re talking a lot about design systems and style guides and so on. I mean, do you do you provide a design system for implementation teams?

Jussi Hiltunen
That’s a good question. Yeah, I think that those are provided by the implementation teams, yeah, the processes are quite complex in this kind of building industry. But yes, there are guidelines for that, how things should be installed and what kind of configurations you have and so on. Of course, the most important thing probably for this solution is that what kind of decision the customer has made and in building industry it may take years to really have the building in us after the planning system. So the initial plan might have gone from developer who has been subcontracted constructor who have selected based on some rules There are parameters that solution. And if it’s not an educated choice that there would be also the user’s point of view taken, then it might be something that you get angry with as a user, because the customer who make the choice may not ever even step into that ready made building. And therefore it might be quite distant, distant for for them. And it’s really important to share that knowledge of the users needs and, and make better solutions. And then, of course, the installation on site, then we’ll make the final touch to that we get good system running.

Per Axbom
This makes me think of when when Jared Spool is saying that everyone is a designer, I mean, you can only go so far, but then somebody else has to interpret what you’re giving them. If you’re giving them this guidelines, then years have passed, and people don’t think that it’s important anymore maybe. And then… So maybe it really comes down to how well are you able to communicate to the people that actually install it in the end.

Jussi Hiltunen
It is really important communication in general. Because, yeah, people have different point of views, and they may be experts on one side, and it’s in a building industry, there are tough regulations of the responsibilities, and those are definitely something that they need to think of, but then this user user needs, that you could, in a way, increase the quality of the user experience may be often sometimes nice to have, in that point, when you are making a decision and there is in the other end the quality or the cost or, or easiness of installation or durability or $1 proven as or something like that, then there are lots of things to consider. From the responsibility point of view,

Per Axbom
You did talk about PILOTs? And how do you even do research around the specific design? I mean, do you have buildings where you’re testing.

James Royal-Lawson
Hope they say that we’ve got giant cardboard boxes, and they lift cardboard boxes around. That would be so cool!

Per Axbom
I would love the cardboard boxes.

Reetta Ranne
We actually have a test shaft in Tuture, which is 300 metres but it goes below the ground. In Finland, everything is quite flat here. But also we are we’re testing out different user interfaces, or different, could be just different icons or different parts of user interfaces. So it’s not always the real functioning setup, but then as well, we have these kind of pilot sites, where we go and observe and we might just like otherwise try to understand better a certain kind of building segments. So go in different kinds of deserve, for example a shopping centre, to see how people are moving there and what kind of things are affecting them.

Jussi Hiltunen
And then lots of prototyping. And you can set up those kinds of environments also in odd places but it really helps to do get further with the development. And then of course, talking about research, then these kinds of trends, like mega trends and understanding of them, of where the urban life is going to and what does these technological disruptions make? And of course, those needs to be then thought locally and globally. To understand them.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, because of course, if you’re in situation like you guys are. When a building starts to exist, it’s in the planning stage, and it can exist as plans for for two, three years, as you said before you even decide which lift manufacturer is going to be involved on the project to deliver the solution. So you guys I guess you’ve got to be always at least three to five years ahead.

Jussi Hiltunen
Yeah.

James Royal-Lawson
In what solutions you’re thinking about, because the buildings that you’re gonna put them in, are three or five years forward.

Reetta Ranne
Yeah, exactly. And at some point, there might be some modernisations. So you might modernise different parts of an elevator. So, so it’s not just about the elevator car that you see, there might be many things modernised on the background. But then as well, you could be modernising the user interfaces, and then, of course, it’s not so big cycle. But that’s true that it’s many times years before, when these plans are made of how it should look. So it’s challenging.

Reetta Ranne
Yeah, And like, also being realistic of that, you cannot know what is going to happen in a couple of years. Nowadays, it’s even harder. So in a way, making platforms and modular systems which enable these kind of adjustments afterward, like upgrade or update. Then maybe wiser, and maybe more, future proofed, and try to do something with this somehow emerging currently. And might not be that, might be still somehow having maybe diseases when it’s out in the market?

Per Axbom
Exactly. So but what are the trends? But what do you talk about at these high tech elevator conferences? What’s happening in the future? So I imagine all these elevators greeting me with good morning and using my name and knowing beforehand what floor I want to go to, because that’s the floor I usually go to and I mean, how where are we headed?

Jussi Hiltunen
These businesses are changing, like, you know, very well, that for example, in retail, the shopping centres are having a different role than earlier they used to be, for example, companies like Amazon are changing the way people are buying things. So these shopping centres are more like social hubs. Hotels needs to have more and more experiences, to entertain or make their guests life convenient. And offices are more like a mindset than then space is sort of it’s quite mobile, mobile world where we are heading to where we are now also, having these kind of telecourse or video conferences are pretty easy. nowadays. But yeah, I think you are you’re pretty up to date of the trends. What’s happening in technological side sort of doors, of course, considered in our our business also.

James Royal-Lawson
I’ve got at least two more questions that I’ve got to pose to you guys. One of them is, when you were interviewed for your jobs, did you have to do the infamous Google 1000 floor elevator challenge?

Reetta Ranne
What is that.

James Royal-Lawson
Okay, so it’s one of these. It’s one of these. It’s an infamous design challenge that Google gives to people during the interview where they, they pose the questions like you’ve got to design an elevator interface for a building with 1000 floors. So, if you search for that there’s just there’s thousands of articles and people have have done these challenges and come up with interfaces.

Jussi Hiltunen
Alright. Maybe I should suggest that we could have done next time. But there if there are good, good solutions already available then. Yeah, what Yeah, no, I didn’t have them Did you have that Reetta?

Reetta Ranne
I would be just observing the different kinds of user interfaces that people are making and, and pointing out things how to improve them.

James Royal-Lawson
I’ve not actually myself done the 1000 floor elevator challenge. But it does sound wonderfully mean to ask someone to design something, which is almost certainly impossible.

Per Axbom
I have done a variant of it actually, at an Adaptive Path course in Berlin, where they gave us constraints as we were going along in the workshop. So yeah, build the elevator interface. No, now it has to be 1000 floors. So they changed it all the time. They’ve changed other things as well as it made it more and more difficult.

Reetta Ranne
Yeah, I would be interested on like, which kind of building is this? What do we know about the users there? What do we know about the floors? What different things are there in different floors? How people are thought that… how would they use this building? How are they coming to that building? What are they doing in between those days when they are there? Or are the hours or minutes? Why do they come here?

Jussi Hiltunen
Some of the lifts, which have 100 floors, you may enter in three of those top one and a couple from the crown side. So it could be also asked that, do you need to enter all of those floors?

James Royal-Lawson
So you’ve both got the job, basically, because you one of the things I don’t like about that challenge is that it just dive straight into the interaction design and doesn’t consider what we as UX is would think of the important understandings, the 14 bits of information we need to know about the situation in order to design it. I had another question. And that was a bit I’ve been asked to ask this one that Per mentioned that beginning, and it was the door closing door opening buttons. Yeah, the whole thing about whether they’re real or not. And someone actually posted a picture of a of one where the the closed doors button had fallen off, revealing it was just stuck on. So I’d like you to to put this finally to sleep and say, the closed door button. Does it work?

Jussi Hiltunen
You know, it’s surprising that how commonly it is used in China, for example, that how fast they find it and how passionate they are using it. So Europe, I don’t see that kind of passion, like in China, which is interesting. This already this mindset of maybe this kind of impatience, in in those situations, then makes it actually really important. But yeah, for designing for those patterns, I think you need to think of the overall context and a more holistic, holistic approach than just the button itself. But yeah, it would be nice that it’s somehow adapting to the context.

Per Axbom
You are avoiding the question.

Reetta Ranne
I think in a perfect world, we wouldn’t have to worry about doors closing or opening buttons, because everything would be understandable and easy. So if there are people coming, who need to come to an elevator, then the doors will stay open. And if they’re all set, then they can go. And nobody feels like they are left outside at elevator and they want it to take.

Per Axbom
Nice, you guys are so good at your jobs. Because what you’re basically saying then is that, that even though people feel that there’s a need for such a button is a design failure.

Reetta Ranne
Yeah, I think that the need is somewhere else than getting the door closed or open, I think the need is not to be rude to people so that the doors will get closed in front of them, I think the the need is to go along with your friend, if you’re going even if you’re going to separate floors, so that you can go there together, I think the need is that if I have been standing here for quite a long time, I it would be really nice to get the elevator, and go to my…

James Royal-Lawson
I think it’s really nice to see you you brought up the cultural aspect or brought us back to the cultural aspect that that in some cultures that get on with it closed the doors is much more important part of the experience than then it will be in other cultures.

Jussi Hiltunen
And it’s understandable also another there is no right or wrong but in a way would be nice to even though we wouldn’t be in that perfect world like Reetta was describing but that if there would be this kind of moment that you see somebody is coming to the left and the door starts closing and then you who are in the lift are able to quickly just open the door and you are you’re the hero who is friendly and opening for that person who is coming in and it’s in a way magical moment what you can have in the left.

James Royal-Lawson
We’ve got the story arc now for elevators That’s lovely.

Jussi Hiltunen
It’s still somehow humane to have have these kinds of features there for surprising moments.

Per Axbom
Teachers for surprisingly, I love that. Thank you so much guys for for joining us. I mean I’ve learned a lot today.

Jussi Hiltunen
Thanks a lot.

Reetta Ranne
Thanks for having us.

Per Axbom
I have to say, I so enjoyed talking to Reetta and Jussi because I mean, you can imagine stuff, but because you and I talk about elevators so much, and people in the design industry talk about elevators so much. But you never think about that it is the exact of course, same design process that we all use. But then there are all these challenges that we don’t have, like the lifecycle and the process of actually getting them from paper to being implemented within say, two to three years and staying ahead and predicting the future, because what you designed today will live on for so many years in the future. And I think we actually, more even in the digital design industry should learn from that and be prepared to build stuff that will have a longer cycle of life

James Royal-Lawson
Oh yeah I mean, this is more traditional product design or kind of, yeah, not digital design. But at the same time it does have digital elements. But I mean, I’ve suspected that one of the challenges with lifts was the life cycle aspect. You know that…

Per Axbom
Yeah, and so many people being involved across…

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, I mean, we know that from… you know, you’re going to an old building here in Stockholm, some of the lovely buildings from almost 100 years ago, and they’re fantastic lifts. But now they’re still there. They still have the same interfaces as they did. Some of them from the beginning, or they’ve maybe been changed out in the, you know, 40 years ago or something. But, you know, there’s such huge timescales that we’re involved in, which is one aspect, but then as we brought up there that, you know, when a building’s drawn by someone an architect, then you know, the some of big buildings, this can be several years before they even start putting a spade into the ground and digging foundations.

Per Axbom
Right, and even then the building plans change, and even who the tenant of that building is will change. So even the research will be wrong based on if they get the tenant wrong. Because I mean, I hadn’t thought about all the differences are between I mean, the shopping centres, office buildings, residential buildings, hotels, and then Jussi was saying, Well, how people actually move around in a shopping centre is changing now, because they’re now they’re more social hubs and people are having coffee, rather than shopping as much as they did before because they do so much shopping online. So even that affects the design of the elevator.

James Royal-Lawson
You confessing, though, that you didn’t think about context when it came to using lifts?

Per Axbom
Yeah, not enough. Not enough. Not that they’re thinking about how shopping centre behaviour changes across the years in the future. And that will affect the design of the elevator.

James Royal-Lawson
Obviously, I mean, hotels is one of the challenges where you’ve got. There, you’ve got an international context in many hotels, but a local culture who is building the hotel. So that’s a challenge. I was surprised, actually, I think there’s a I think there’s a business opportunity here for for Kone, that I was surprised about how they weren’t regularly involved, it sounded as being like consultants in the planning stages in the in the architects stages, because I think we know we talked about being you know, we always talk about being included early on, and the more the more various competencies you include in a project earlier, the more increased chance of success you have. And here, they lifted up on of the challenge has been that, you know, by the time they implementation comes to happen. They’re implementing modules and modular based transport system. And their design work has been done. And the research has been done long before as a module thing. Whereas if they could come in, in the planning stage and sit in some of those meetings and talk to them say, Well, you know, if you’ve, if you move the elevator there, or do this there, or think about this floor or do that, then maybe that’s going to be more stressful, or maybe they do do it. We just didn’t ask the right question.

Per Axbom
Exactly. We didn’t have a long enough interview. But also, I was thinking that this interview will actually help me describe what I do to other people, because it’s so easy for people to relate to elevators. So describing the process, in the sense that it relates to the process I’m working with, will make people understand, “this is how we work”. And even when Jussi was talking about modular systems, that’s one way of solving this long lifecycle problem that relates to atomic design and Brad Frost for me, and even “do I want the elevators?” No… didn’t want the elevator speak to me. And that’s GDPR. That’s ethics. I mean, everything can be related to some part of what we’re doing in the digital world as well. It’s really interesting. And I loved how Reetta was saying that the door close button you were asking about. It’s actually the wrong solution to a problem that should be solved in another way

James Royal-Lawson
Potentially, yes, yeah. That the lift should be the lift should have more empathy, more feeling for the situation and not to close the door on your friend as your Randy’s walk coming up to the lifting join you in to go up to your apartment or something. There’s a lot of wonderful aspects to this. But I think we all were talking about experiments and pushing out experiments and, you know, getting things in the browser quickly. You know, here, yes, okay, they’ve got a test shaft. I mean, wouldn’t you love to have a test shaft Per? But you know, when their experiments go out, they’re not just switched to an AB it’s not an AB test. You don’t AB test elevators. You don’t, kind of like, switch it out after two weeks or something else. Okay, you can change the software, but some of the hardware side of stuff. I mean, it’s not going to be possible to alter, as we said, for maybe forty years or more.

Per Axbom
Right.

James Royal-Lawson
That’s, that’s a fascinating challenge.

Per Axbom
Yeah. And that’s why I mean, that’s why Jussi, was talking about modular system, you actually can change hardware. And that’s when I realised also, of course, they’re probably using some buttons they’re using, they’re using them because they have some over. The builders. Because I mean, it’s cheaper to use something that’s already there that y’all have already bought, then to use the design solution, in some cases.

James Royal-Lawson
Yeah, you’re exactly this is the this is the thing, where, because they’ve gone modular. And because you’ve got constructors who are going to be fitting and actual fitters, who actually putting the lift in place, they’re gonna have this box of Lego. And so they’re taking design design decision. They’re making design decisions at that point as well. So there’s another opportunity if we’re going to do some consulting work, they can come in there and kind of usability test the elevators, the end.

Per Axbom
I would love myself to do a usability test of elevators.

James Royal-Lawson
So, ring in if you want us to go out and test your elevator.

Per Axbom
Oh, that’s excellent. We should actually have people calling and ask for stuff like that.

James Royal-Lawson
Please subscribe to the show. If you don’t already. And feel free to dip your toes into our back catalogue. Links related to this episode will be on uxpodcast.com If you can’t reach them from wherever you’re listening now. And we also send them out as part of our backstage email. So you can sign up for that at uxpodcast.com/backstage Thank you for spending some time with us.

Per Axbom
Remember to keep moving.

James Royal-Lawson
See you on the other side.

[Music]

Per Axbom
Knock knock.

James Royal-Lawson
Who’s there?

Per Axbom
Mike Sniffer Pipits?

James Royal-Lawson
Mic Sniffer Pipits who?

Per Axbom
Oh, come on how many Mike Sniffer Pipits do you know? Now let me in it’s cold out here!

This is a transcript of a conversation between James Royal-Lawson, Per Axbom, Reetta Ranne, and Jussi Hiltunen recorded in June 2018 and published as episode 291 of UX Podcast.