In the Details: Button Hook
All of the cars I’ve driven in the past have had pretty standard switches for the automatic windows. They are vertically-oriented, two-way switches. Push down, and the window goes down. Push up, and the window goes up. My Mazda5 has a different control that I have noticed in other cars recently. It’s located on the arm rest on the door, so it is on a horizontal surface. Right off the bat, this decreases the intuitiveness of the control. Don Norman speaks of natural mapping in The Design of Everyday Things.
Mapping is a technical term meaning the relationship between two things, in this case between controls and their movements and the results in the world.
The control isn’t oriented in the direction that the window will move. They’ve done something a little strange to get around this. The control is hook-shaped. There is a depression that allows the finger to hook under the control and pull up on it. So, pushing on the button depresses it causing the window to descend. Pulling up on it causes the window to rise.
For some reason, I’m having a hard time getting used to this. I still see it as pushing forward and pulling back, which equates to closing and opening respectively.