
Points of contact – a short history of door handles - pepys
https://www.apollo-magazine.com/history-door-handle-designs/
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aibara
I wish there had been a link or reference to a more in-depth history, since
this article is quite short and skips over any early stuff. I've been weirdly
interested in door knobs and handles ever since I moved into an older (110
years) house and tried to find a matching door knob for one that was weirdly
missing (got lucky due to its distinctive fleur-de-lis motif and knowing their
age).

Tangentially, this reminded me of a nice automotive door handle taxonomy I
came across recently: [https://jalopnik.com/this-is-the-definitive-
classification-g...](https://jalopnik.com/this-is-the-definitive-
classification-guide-to-car-door-1785167296)

~~~
secabeen
Yeah, it also completely misses the influence of the ADA on door handles in
the US, and the complete migration away from non-lever handles in non-
residential spaces.

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gav
I often use doors as the introduction to understand affordances. It's crazy
that we've had doors for 5000 years and we still make them hard to open.

See "Norman Doors":
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY96hTb8WgI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY96hTb8WgI)

The Design of Everyday Things:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Design_of_Everyday_Things)

~~~
SilasX
What time do they specifically describe the Norman Door? I skipped around in
the video and I got the general point (doors, like everything else, should
make invalid options not look valid), but I couldn't stand the video's style
enough to sit through the whole thing.

~~~
gav
All the confusing doors they show are "Norman Doors":

> A so-called “Norman Door” has design elements that give you the wrong
> usability signals to the point that special signage is needed to clarify how
> they work. Without signs, a user is left guessing about whether to push or
> pull, creating needless frustration.

(from the 99% Invisible page)

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hlandau
Here's an interesting subtlety of modern door handles. Next time you're in a
high-rise building, check the door handles on the stairwells. You may find
that the movement of the handle on one side of the door is mechanically
uncorrelated with the movement of the door handle on the other side; yet
other, identical-looking door handles in the same building may function
normally.

I believe this is a safety feature to prevent doors from being jammed on the
opposite side by putting e.g. a piece of furniture underneath the door handle.
Someone had to actually think of this risk, and invent this special type of
door handle - yet most people will never notice it.

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mintym
I heard someone refer to doors as "a building's handshake" or a building's
first impression. The REI near me uses canoe paddles for door handles which is
brilliant.

~~~
pchristensen
The one by me has ice axes for handles. It's so cool.

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autoexec
Maybe this article never loaded correctly, but it really seemed to be lacking
in images. It's spends a paragraph talking about a handle made by Walter
Gropius but never bothers to show it to you.

I satisfied my curiosity here:
[https://www.doublestonesteel.com/blog/products/my-
favourite-...](https://www.doublestonesteel.com/blog/products/my-favourite-
modernist-steel-door-handles-and-their-designers/)

~~~
RWSen
The handle designed by Walter Gropius is the first image of the article for
me, even before the introduction. Direct link:
[https://apollo.imgix.net/content/uploads/2020/06/GettyImages...](https://apollo.imgix.net/content/uploads/2020/06/GettyImages-1091219478.jpg?auto=compress,format&w=900&h=600)

~~~
autoexec
I see it now! I just didn't scroll back up to the top of the page to find the
image of something being discussed in the middle of the article

