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Comment by mattzito | Hacker News Reader

When I worked for squarespace, their beautiful new offices had glass conference room doors that swung one way, the other way, or slid on a track, depending on the room configuration.

However every one of those doors had the same handle on both sides, giving you no clue as to which scenario this door was providing. You saw people pull/push the wrong way all the time, and then look up/to the side to see the hinges and where the door stop was. I eventually mentally dubbed that quiet look upwards before you touched a door the, “squarespace peek”.

After a while I’d heard that the original plans had the typical plate and handle for push/pull and the ceo felt like it messed with the design of the doors.

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It reminded me of my experience at a Japanese Onsen (hot spring) last week. While entering the Onsen, the sliding door is automated and slides to open on it’s own. While exiting, the automated sliding doesn’t work. It has handles with no indication of pull or push or slide. The design of handles suggest most probably pull. I kept trying to pull/push with no movement. Finally, realized I am supposed to use those handles to slide the door left and right. That was one funky design, imo.

Reminds me of this japanese comedy sketch https://youtu.be/ZkQNP2cqG2I

Another tricky thing is figuring out how to flush the public toilets. The user interface is non standard on every toilet. The most surprising way I've encountered was to step on a button on the floor. (Remember to never press the big green button)

> Remember to never press the big green button

One of my greatest fears :p I saw someone do that one time actually, and the door that the button opened was really slow moving and irreversible until it had completed opening fully. This was on a train, with all of the passenger seats facing the door in question. The guy that did it had to quickly pull his pants up and then stand there awkwardly while the door finished opening so that he could close it again.

Friend, you missed the biggest news of 2017:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38660860

Although it probably takes a few years for all toilets to be replaced...

Haha! It's almost the end of 2021 and I haven't noticed any changes! Squatters are still around too, lol

> Remember to never press the big green button

Is that one that automatically opens the door, or one which automatically starts a full wash of the entire toilet cabinet's interior?

Worse. It raises an alarm and automatically sends down a bunch of security guards to check on you, lol

Sometimes the button is red, but it can be any color, sometimes it looks like a flush button.

Wow, never heard of that one, pretty nice variation on an awful pattern. Is it in handicap stalls or does it also exist in "regular"?

Such a great sketch, even without audio!

I hate that we don't have a universal way to encode and decode how to use doors/buttons/levers.

That design is everywhere in Japan, and can be quite embarrassing for tourists.

First time I went to Japan I walked up to my hotel late at night. I went to the door. There was no handle or obvious way to open it. I stood there like an idiot for a minute or two. I walked back out to the street to make sure I'm at the right building. I walked back to the door and finally got it. The trick... you have to wave your hand directly in front of the door an inch or two. Places in Japan often do not put the motion sensor ahead of the door, but straight down. You start feeling like a Jedi at times, waving doors open.

They might want to prevent false activations since the doors tend to play annoying melodies when you go through them.

Usually, the doors have a strip or label indicating press/touch/wave here but typically in Japanese or hand wave/ double chevron symbols. As a visiting foreigner, we typically are not used to seeing such signage. Over the years living here, I have started to recognize tell tale signs of automated doors in Japan.

One possible saving grace for this design is that mechanical sliding doors/panels are "traditional" in Japan - ie: tradional architecture makes use of sliding doors - often without clear "handles".

See eg: https://youtu.be/MfQkeIf2IjA

Sliding doors are very common in Japan. My home has them and they are great for saving space. They are sometimes hard to spot outside.

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