Designing... It's All About The Mirrors

I had dinner the other night with Jerry Warshaw. He has been an icon in the property management industry for decades and holds many awards for innovation in his industry. We were having a discussion about how design plays into building solutions that build revenue. I come from the advertising and online world, and he from the property development and management world. We found that we agreed on one underlying philosophy, that it is always in the best interest of any business to explore the dynamics and behaviors of its customers and to ensure that their experience affects the bottom line. To his point he shared a true story with me; a story that he finds extremely relevant to this point.

There was a multi-story office building in New York City that had a problem with unhappy tenants. When the building was constructed, it was decided that three elevators would be sufficient to transport the amount of tenants expected in the building. A year after construction when the building was only ¾ full, they began receiving complaints that the wait time for the elevators were excessive.

The property management company hired a firm to conduct a study to find out if the complaints were true. After a few weeks, the firm reported back that in fact the elevator wait time was a full 25 seconds slower compared to similar office building in the city. The property management company then contacted the owners of the building and submitted the findings of the study.

The owners of the building decided then to have several contractors come in and propose a solution to the problem. The obvious thing to do was to build another elevator, but the building was land locked and they could not add another elevator to the outside of the structure. All of the contractors came back with the same solution; cut into your rentable square footage by adding an additional elevator inside the building. The owners felt the multi million dollar expense paled in comparison to the thought of reducing their revenue by cutting into the rentable area. But, what choice did they have. They knew that they could eventually lose renters due to this issue, and worse, the issue could be used against them by competing properties. The problem had to be solved.

A colleague of one of the contractors had heard of this problem and wanted to have a chance to solve the problem. With his background in architectural design, he called upon the owners of the building and requested a meeting. Not knowing the solution, he insisted that he could find a way to solve the problem without incurring the expense of building a new elevator. He asked the owners group to give him a chance to find that solution, and, if he succeeded, his consulting fee would be $200K. If he failed to find a solution they would owe him nothing. The owners agree with the hope that this gentleman could in fact find them a solution.

He quickly went to work on the project. He spent 2 weeks studying the tenants of the building and their habits. He sat and watched them wait for the elevators, and he observed their frustrations and their behaviors. He noticed that they were all very self absorbed, thinking of their meetings, how they looked, where they were going. They all seemed so preoccupied with their thoughts. It then hit him, the solution to the problem.

2 months later the architectural designer stood in front of the owners of the building. “I have solved your problem!” he stated. One of the owners quickly asked what the new wait times were for the elevators and wanted to know how he changed it. “They are the same as before, 25 seconds longer than most similar office buildings in the area” he proclaimed. The owners, looking dumbfounded, wanted to know then how he could state that he had solved the problem. “I didn’t even try to change anything structural with the elevators, nor did I attempt to change the wait time. What I attempted to accomplish was to reduce the number of complaints by eliminating the issue. I studied these people and their habits. I watched them wait for these elevators and what I found was that these people were being asked to wait in a confined area, void of interaction. All of their worries, fears and tasks cascading through their mind as they pointlessly wait for an elevator. If I could eliminate this void, I could eliminate the issue.”

The owners, becoming somewhat worried, wanted to know what he had done and how he accomplished this. “Simple” he replied. “I installed mirrors”. On the opposite walls of the elevators, he had installed mirrors. They were nice mirrors bordered with etching and designs. On the floor he added plants. “The mirrors gave them something to do, it took them away from their immediate thoughts and into something different. I observed these people waiting for the elevators now, and almost all of them will go over or turn around and look at themselves in the mirror. Some are thinking of how they need to work out, some are looking at how they are dressed and some are grooming themselves. In each case, it took the place of the extra wait time, but more importantly, it change their thoughts away from waiting and onto themselves. They now can interface with this area, instead of having the area confine them”.

The property management company representative acknowledged this by confirming that the mirrors had eliminated almost all of the complaints for elevator wait times and that it no longer was an issue. Their projections for full occupancy were now short term and that the tenants, who were worried of a rent increase due to the reduction rentable square foot, are very pleased with the solution.

I find this story to be very inspiring and it has helped me continue to believe in the principals of my industry. There are a couple of key points to this story that I want to address, because without them, the solution would never have surfaced.

Someone, and in this case the architectural designer, had to have a broad view of the possibilities of solving the problem. Had it not been for his efforts, the owners would have hired a contractor to demolish very valuable floor space in an attempt to increase efficiency. Had it not been a “free” attempt to solve the problem, our designer never would have been given the opportunity.

Now, take this story and relate it to building and maintaining an online company. Functionality usually always takes precedence over design. That is when stakeholders think that design is colors and fonts. And, if this building were a website, they would have torn down one side of the building, installed and elevator and tracked the speed of the wait time. Then, they would ask the designer to paint the walls. When the wait times decreased down to an acceptable range, success would have been declared. But what opportunity did they waste in this attempt to be functional? And at what cost to the company? Did they lose a key opportunity to communicate or interact with the customer?

I’m just saying…