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Comment by teddyh | Hacker News Reader

> In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work.

This sounds likely, but also sounds too cute to be true, i.e. a perfect candidate for an urban legend.

It’s of course possible that this is the result of the manufacturers having to serve some markets where a functioning door-close button is needed/wanted, and simply disable the button where customers do not want or need the functionality - i.e. a similar reason as the reason there are braille dots on the drive-through ATM.

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The close-door button definitely does work in some installations. At a minimum, the button works in most hospitals. They tend to have very long open-door periods (to give people extra time), but also frequently need to get someone to another floor as quickly as possible.

The door close button is a perfect solution to this problem.

The door close buttons are for when the elevator is in fire service mode. In that mode, the lift only does what the operator (a fireman) tells it to do, for good reason. If they take the lift to the fourth floor, say where a fire is, the doors will only open when the "door open" button is held. Same for the opposite with the "door close" button.

In all seriousness, that's one of my favorite things about Japan: those buttons always work.

And the braille on the drive-through ATMs is for blind people in taxis.

I always thought the braille on drive-through ATMs was for scales of economy - it's easier and cheaper to have N molds than to have 2N molds (in this case N molds for "everything has the braille and 2N for the case where there is and is not braille).

When the close door button is just the two triangles, my brain can never parse which is close and which is open. Does that happen to anyone else?

Example: <> ><

I feel like the arrows pointing away looks more like a door coming together.

Yes! Exactly the same. I am always hitting the "close" button when I'm wanting the open. And contrary to legend, in at least some elevators the close button definitely initates a door close immediately.

This has happened so often that when I want to hold the elevator for someone I actually hold the door with my hand or foot rather than try to figure out which button to push.

In fire service mode door operations are manually controlled. So they do have a purpose, even if most users never experience it.

Source: http://elevation.wikia.com/wiki/Fire_service_mode_(EFS)

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