The loose doorknob effect

Every public service touchpoint is a handshake that subconsciously defines our relationship with government.

Gracen Johnson introduced me to the concept of the “loose doorknob effect” many moons ago on her Instagram story and it stuck with me. She writes:

“Doorknobs are a part of your home that you interact with every day. It’s disturbing in a subtle way when a doorknob doesn’t feel sturdy and functional. Every damn time you turn a wiggly doorknob with a loose screw, or feel a dented hollow one, or WORST, try to turn one that doesn’t even turn, it cheapens the feel of the building.”

The doorknob is your handshake with a house, and jiggly doorknobs have a subconscious impact on our confidence in the building. Even though you might not realize it, that can make you feel uneasy. It's a feeling you can't quite explain but it affects how you think about the building. 

This same effect can be observed in government services too.

Every time you interact with a public service (receiving a letter or email, a trip to a government service building, casting a ballot, filling out a form) you’re shaking hands with the government. These interactions subconsciously define our relationship with the public sector.

People might not be able to explain how all those little "wiggly doorknob" interactions with the government add up, but those feelings are there. They affect our opinions of government, how we talk about government, which services we access, and how we vote.

So the question is not only whether government is measuring enough, but whether it is measuring the right things.

Meanwhile, governments are often very good at measuring transactions. They count how many people came through, how long it took, how many projects were completed, and whether targets were met on time. But those measures miss something important: how the experience actually felt to the person trying to use the service.

If the real damage is often hidden in the “wiggly doorknobs,” then our measurement systems are often looking in the wrong place.

If we want more human-centred government, we need to measure more than throughput. We need to create room for people to describe the friction, confusion, frustration, and dignity of their experience, including the effects of the “wiggly doorknobs” that make services harder than they should be.

That is why the Good Services Scale matters. It helps teams look beyond internal performance metrics and ask a more meaningful question: is this service actually good for the people who use it?

Changing what we measure is key to changing what we improve. If we want services that are not just efficient but clear, usable, and respectful, the Good Services Scale is a useful place to begin.