Here we have many lifts in Hong Kong since we have so many tall buildings. One of the lift I am using very often is the one inside Festival Walk(a shopping mall). Here are its buttons:
First of all, the mixed use of letters and numbers (also an icon) to name floor is confusing. I have seen many people had difficulty finding the right floor at first sight. If there were tens of floors which goes from lower-ground 5 to upper-ground 25, grouping the floors with something like “UG” and “LG” would be meaningful. But as you can see in the photo, there are only seven floors… So actually I cannot really tell it is some kind of grouping as the group has at most two members only… And for “UG”, I really don’t know why they’re not naming the “1” and “2” with “UG” as “UG1”,”UG2”,”UG3”. Or simply use “1”,”2”,”3”? You also need to think if “LG2” or “LG1” is upper floor.
Secondly, not all Hong Kong people know “LG” and “UG” stand for “lower-ground” and “upper-ground”. I have some friends misunderstood “UG” as underground… The users are mostly Hong Kong people which are not having English as native language. Anyway I don’t see a point why not use “-1”, “0”, “1”, “2”…
Lastly, the arrangement of the grid is confusing. The arrangement is different from written English(left to right, top to bottom) or traditional Chinese(top to bottom, right to left). See below:
Not only Festival Walk, but also City University of Hong Kong has this arrangement:
Is that only Hong Kong has these kind of lift? If so, maybe that’s because we Hong Kong people are proud to have both Western and Chinese culture which expressed in lift button arrangement?
Update:
I finally have found another example of the arrangement, that is…
Japanese comic?!