Norman Doors: Explained

Published in

Bootcamp

3 min readDec 17, 2022

A Norman Door is a door that is unclear if you push or pull — primarily because of the design prioritizing aesthetic over usability; form over function.

Affordance

In design, “a hint provided by an object’s shape and position is called an affordance.”¹ In the past, we designed doors with high usability: panels afforded pushing and bars afforded pulling.

Pull door: bars afford pulling

Push door: panels afford pushing

Then, we prioritized aesthetics and put bars on both sides — causing mass confusion. That is, you don’t know whether to push or pull when you approach it. You have to try it. While the symmetry is aesthetically pleasing, the door has low usability with its ambiguous affordance.

Don Norman insightfully points this out in his famous book The Design of Everyday Things³ aka DOET. In Chapter 1, he says

“The design of the door should indicate how to work it without any need for signs, certainly without any need for trial and error.”³

While doors should be simple, Norman Doors require trial and error to understand. I think it’s sad and funny that we adopt this design — as you’ll encounter them globally.

Norman Door: bars on both sides: pull or push? Nobody knows.

“Don’t blame yourself”. Blame the designer³

In DOET, Don says: “don’t blame yourself”. It is the job of the designer to embed discoverability and understanding in a device with minimal instruction.

Don Norman himself talks about it with Vox:

Vox interviews Don Norman

Empathize with the designer

However, as a designer myself, I have found that good design (discoverable and understandable) is not easy to do and requires iteration. You too may have encountered this if you’ve made something and watched someone use it.

Sad reality

Doors have been around for a while and I think we should have nailed this design by now — and shouldn’t be okay with form over function. That being said, with the mentality of “the customer is always right”, in many cases, the customer (building owner, architect, etc.) requests Norman Doors because they look nice and people like the look. So who’s to blame?

Complexity from additional requirements

Many situations have additional requirements: security authentication and latching. Security is required for locations with limited access: work, military, etc. Latching so the door doesn’t swing unintentionally. And latching has its different forms for users to actuate: knobs, handles, bars, panels, etc. I mention these because we often want designs to be simple and clear, but we also want them to work. And handling these additional requirements adds complexity. We must accept that too.