Poor Design of Northern’s Diesels
 

I teach Psychology in Stockport and use the train to get to work and think that a good project for my students would be to travel on some of Northern’s different trains for the following reasons.

On Class 142s the open/close buttons are out of sight. As the doors are similar to those on buses it makes occasional passengers think they will open automatically and it seems to amuse the conductors when people can’t find the button to open the doors.

On some Class 150s people struggle to flush the toilet, not because it’s broken but because you have to stand on a button on the floor to flush them rather than press a button or lever at the back of the toilet. The tap on the sink works on the same basis.

Some 156s are equally confusing. On most trains the open door button is above the close door button but on these trains it’s the other way around. Most people don’t try to press the close door button to open the door, but it makes people look carefully at which button opens the door. The toilets on some of these trains aren’t confusing to use but the bin for paper towels is in a strange place (it’s next to the toilet instead of next to or under the sink as you’d expect.)

Many Psychology books refer to the old slam door intercity trains as having a confusing method of opening the doors ,whereby to open the door from the inside you wind down the window and open the door from the outside. However, Northern’s is more confusing as they can use all three of these types of train on the same route.

Intersting idea.

1. What is an "intuitive" design?
2. What is an ergonomic design?
3. and what is the consequence of a design that has to be learnt by the users? (The old slam doors might just have been confusing to new users but if most people had learnt how to use them, and the principle remained unchanged for 30 years, then there is no problem.)
4. How frequently can you introduce a new design before people get annoyed/fed up/violent?

As for "confusing":- could you explain why I have to go to the "Start" tab on my p.c. screen to switch it off? :D

I admit that the Class 142 door buttons are poorly positioned but I don't think the other examples you give are particularly troublesome. Although it's not always welcome it's a fact of life that things are constantly changing and that includes transport. If the differing equipment positions on these trains are going to cause hardship to their users then how are these same users going to cope with everyday life where very little is standardised.
As for the old slam-door carriages.....Opening the door was easy. It was how to get the window open in the first place that was confusing.:D

If on a sink the hot tap is on the right hand side many people would see it as the wrong way around, as it is not in the usual place. If the close button is above the open button on a train shouldn't it also be seen as it being in the wrong place?

Class 150s have a different button design from 156s up to 185s but the size or colour of the buttons isn't important.

There are potential safety issues when hot and cold taps are reversed and as a result their positions are generally standardised but who is to say what the correct position for door open and close buttons should be?

I don't think plumbers were told a long time ago which round to fit hot and cold taps. It probably just became the norm for them to be fitted a certain way around after most were done a certain way. So as most trains have the open button above the close button, a new or refurbised train should probably do them that way round.

You don't on Windows XP or newer, you can press the power button and it will safely shut down your PC, the same way as pressing the power button to turn off your TV doesn't harm it. Though some people don't like doing that because on Windows 95 if you did that it wouldn't safely shut down Windows first.

Yes I agree but once the norm had been established it needs to be kept that way to help guard against people getting scalded.
What I am saying is that the positioning of door buttons doesn't carry these same safety risks.