Hows my little interface?

Holy crap our world is so absolutely weird if you just twist yourself around and peer in from an outsiders perspective. I think about all sorts of weird things all the time and in class yesterday was no exception, except this time I had some guided stray thoughts.

The class: Interactive Design
The Subject: Interfaces
The Project: Describe an interface of something in the real world

We chose locks, which got me thinking...

Imagine the interface of a lock, that is, how exactly a lock works. I will go over this quick for the less informed.
Oh, we will be discussing your average door lock just to clarify too.

The user has a piece of metal, a key, cut in such a way that when inserted into a specially designed hole and turned it enables a door to be opened.

So that is the obvious you and I all know that but lets turn it around and look at it from an outsider's perspective:

An informed person hands you a piece of metal and tells you it will open that section of the wall. Well to me that sounds funny itself. That brings us to the functionality of the piece of metal, the oddly-shaped key can only fit into the slot one way (we presume) so the user must find where this key may be inserted to correctly open the door. Now if completely unfamiliar with a door the key could be inserted in the crack between the door and frame and become stuck, now you have a locked and stuck door, with no key. So lets assume the user finds the correct place for the key, hopefully they aren't so unlucky that the key fits upside down and right side up. And now finally our user just figured out how to unlock the door, but to the unfamiliar person they might find themselves wondering, I was told the door would open with this tool. Once again they are challenged with a new idea such that they have just unlocked the door and it is not open. I could go on with the knob and pushing but I probably already lost most of you by here so I'll wrap it up.

Since we are just taught as young children how doors and keys work we have all taken for granted how in fact these interfaces are so very complicated yet we regard them as some of the simplest things in the world. It really makes me appreciate my brain and the things it remembers.