Where's the handle?

At my grandparents house they have standard refrigerator that looks pretty normal. There's nothing special about it, no ice dispenser or anything like that. Freezer on the top with the refrigerator on the bottom. The first time I used it I was thoroughly confused. There wasn't an handle on the door. Instead there were indents on the sides of the doors where you put your hand in and pull it open.

The reason that this confused me was there were handles on both sides of the the door! There was no difference between the left and right sides. This obviously made me think that the door was stuck when I couldn't open it at first. I didn't take long to figure out that it was the other side that needed to be open but this was clearly a bad design. Why didn't they put the indents on only one side of the door or put handles to make the opening side more clear?