Outsmarted by a door
For the past few days of going in and out of my hotel room, I’ve always wondered and been a bit annoyed by the fact my door doesn’t shut when I leave. Each time, I had to put my key into the door which would then unlock the door so I could turn the handle and proceed to close the door.
I did this for a few days thinking it was just some oversight on some door makers part but then yesterday it hit me. They weren’t stupid, they were ingenious. You see, what they were doing was making sure I had my key before I left the room.
If I had my key, I’d be able to place it within the door key pad and proceed to close and lock the door. If I didn’t have my key, I was able to get right back into my room and figure out where I left it. More than likely in my wallet which is something else I would have really needed if I was heading out for the day.
So brilliant idea W Hotels.
Zach Moazeni Says:
I had the same damn problem moving from locking my car with the key FOB to locking it manually.
I never locked myself out of the car if I had the FOB in my hand while locking, however since we bought an older car, I’ve had to use my wife’s keys more than a few times to unlock it.
I can see fringes of this concept being applied to the IT industry. Like using your email as a login. I wonder what other interesting ideas could be attributed to “keeping the user one set further from the idiot ledge.”, especially in IT / Software