Security

One thing that never ceases to frustrate me are the locks on doors at Notre Dame. The locks on the doors to the computer labs in the engineering building require a passcode to be typed in before unlocking. The problem is, there is no way to undo a mistake that is made while typing a code in. Instead, you have to wait for a few seconds before you can continue. It would be much more convenient if you could clear the entry you've made so far and start again. Of course, it is understandable that the manufacturer might want to force you to wait after an incorrect input. In the same way that online passwords sometimes force you to wait after a certain number of incorrect inputs, this pause makes the process of trying to guess a password much more time consuming, making it an unfeasable task. That said, even with a forced pause, it would be nice to have an indication of when you are allowed to try again. Following an incorrect input with a correct input too quickly forces you to wait again before you can try. This process can be frustrating, and it would be easy to fix by simply using the flashing light to indicate when it is okay to try again.



Some of the labs have doors that require you to punch mechanical buttons in rather than digitally entering a code. Turning the knob on these doors resets it, so that you can try again. This is a much less frustrating design. Unfortunately, the codes for these doors can be much harder to remember. These locks allow a combination to include two numbers being pressed at the same time in order to increase the number of possible combinations using fewer buttons. Unfortunately, this makes the passwords harder to chunk into easy to remember sequences such as a 4 number year. Instead, you not only have to remember the numbers, but also which numbers are pressed simultaneously. This does not work well with how the human brain remembers things.



Another type of door lock on campus that was poorly designed from a user interface perspective are the locks on the dorm rooms of the West Quad dorms. These locks take the form of small switches that are located on the side of the doors and can only be seen when the doors are open. It took me a couple of weeks into my freshman year to realize they even existed without someone showing me. Furthermore, "unlocking" the door with your key does not actually unlock it, but rather just opens it. However, the door remains unlocked from the inside, so if you beleive you've unlocked your door by using the key (because that's how it works on every other door you've used in your life) and choose to leave, you can easily find yourself locked out of your room.



Fortunately, there are some much more user friendly security systems such as fingerprint readers. Fingerprint readers are ideal from the user's perspective because they are fast, intuitive, and don't require the user to remember any numbers or passwords. Unfortunately, they are also much more complicated to set up because you need prior knowledge of the fingerprint of the person being granted access. You cannot easily and freely distribute fingerprints as you do passwords, so in a setting like Notre Dame where the users are changing from year to year or in the case of a home where you might want to grant a friend or neighbor access, it is inconvenient to give new users the ability to unlock the system. Retinal scans tend to be popular forms of security in movies, but they tend to be less convenient to use than fingerprint scanners. Until retinal scanning becomes as convenient as it is in Minority Report, where Tom Cruise can simply walk off the subway and have his eyes scanned without having to pause even for a moment, we will just have to make due with keys and keypads.