The Charm of an Elevator

Here is a question for you.

Suppose you are on the 12^th floor and the lift is on the 7^th floor and you want to go to ground floor. So which button are you likely to press the up arrow or down arrow?

Choose one. You will be shocked to the see the stats of the result. It was a poll question over twitter. Hope you pick one, if you haven’t chosen one yet then choose one that you are more likely to press.

Let me reveal the stats to you. Approx 83% twitterian choose down arrow and 17% choose up arrow. But what we say over poll may not match with what we do in our day to day life. Mostly we end up pressing both the buttons, don’t we? Do we really need both the buttons?

Some people assumes that pressing the up button will make the lift come up whereas the buttons are from the customers perspective on which side we want to go. On the top floor there is no up arrow and on the ground floor there is no down arrow.

Expressing something over a poll and actually doing the thing are two totally different things. Even I choose the down arrow but while executing the actions. I often end up pressing both the buttons. Hoping if pressing the other button will make the lift come to the floor quicker. This is an interesting user interface puzzle, where such a simple things turnout to be so complex.

Next time waiting for a lift maybe we can ask our brain out of curiosity as to why it press the other button. It might have become our second nature. We will aware about it from next time.

Why expression and action don’t match up?

That’s the most interesting point. Often our choices on the survey don’t match up the reality. Makes me wonder if basing decisions on the survey is a good choice. So many decisions in day to day life are taken based on surveys. Can we trust them?

If you enjoyed reading this post and found it helpful, feel free to share on Whatsapp with your loved ones by clicking here.