When Form Fights Function: The Reverse Norman Door on a Tesla
Design lessons for AI apps from the physical world
Spotted in Manhattan: Uber drivers retrofitting their Teslas with aftermarket plastic door handles. Why? Because passengers simply can’t figure out how to open the doors.
These sleek, flush Tesla handles are so “design-forward” that they have become unusable and confusing to the average non-Tesla-owning passenger. So drivers are adding literal handles… because, well, humans need something to pull.
What we’re seeing is a reverse Norman door in the wild.
A Norman door - named after usability expert Don Norman - is one that looks like it should be pushed when it should be pulled (or vice versa). It’s design that misleads, creating friction where there should be flow.
Tesla’s version? It’s functionally sound but lacks intuitive “affordance.” People expect a physical cue - a handle to grab - and when it’s missing, behavior breaks down.
So despite all the engineering elegance, the user ends up pawing at the door like a cat trying to open a cabinet.
There’s a broader lesson here:
If your user needs instructions to complete a basic action, your design has already failed.
In AI, product, and change management, this plays out every day. Slick dashboards no one uses. Powerful models no one trusts. Elegant logic no one understands.
Design isn’t just what something looks like. It’s how it communicates its purpose.
And sometimes, that communication… looks like a $9 plastic handle from Amazon.