Doors of Perception (of insecurity)

 

Just how many security doors does a place of work need (for efficiency or for security)?Crossing the boundary between inside and outside of the building is easy - automatic doors sense my presence and open to allow me inside. A great start, but its all down hills from here.

 In order to then get to my office I have to:

1. Touch my ID card on the barriers to get from the Lobby into the main building

2. Once up the lift I need to use my ID card to release the lock on the double fire doors in order to access the studio (these are 'stuck together' for fire regs - making this an annoying action - pull one door and the other also opens as well.

3. Once at my office I need to use my ID card again to release the glass office door.

Fine, wear a lanyard and this isn't too onerous. But on exiting the door to the office I need to press the door release button then use the handle to open the door - one very simple effective process immediately becomes at least twice as complicated. I am lucky to have two functioning hands, but what about the less able? and if you are carrying something in one had it becomes more complex again. If you are carrying a folding bike or some other heavy item in from outside - this journey becomes thoroughly wearisome.

The experience is so poor of course that the doors get wedged open, creating a real danger in the case of fire and making security breaches easy.

The annoying experience of the sticky security door is multiplied over the day as I move around the building, I have to go through two sets of these doors to move from one studio to another so I can do this up to 10 times a day or more (meaning 20 really annoying encounters). THIS IS NOT PROGRESS.

OK so the argument is that I am safer for this design, but why do I have to constantly suffer constantly for a hypothetical threat? Cant we make every doorway encounter as easy as having the door opened for us?

Finally how are employers using this data captured from each encounter?

This is before we get to the issue of 'Norman Doors'  doors where the design suggests you do one thing (push or pull) while actually requiring the other thing.