poor user experience, hardware edition

[cellio]

I call these "Don Norman doors". It's been 30 years since he wrote The Psychology of Everyday Things (aka POET) and people are still doing stuff like this:

But hey, they recognized the problem -- and "fixed" it with documentation. Yay?

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I was recently mystified by the following control in a hotel shower:

One of those controls temperature, but it moves most of the way around so it's not clear whether you need to turn clockwise or counterclockwise. The other one controls which of two different shower heads to dispense water through. Why there are two shower heads is left as an exercise for the user, I guess. (And, of course, when I'm trying to operate a shower, I don't have my glasses on.)

Comments

[jducoeur]

Heh. So our big investment last year was building a fancy new bathroom for Kate. This condo has always had a bathroom in the master bedroom, but it was the size of a closet, and she couldn't shower without banging her elbows on the walls. So we tore it out, stole some floorspace from the (enormous) master bedroom, and tripled the size of the bathroom. Fancy custom fixtures and all -- really lovely, moderately high-end. Pain in the ass to get there, though: we couldn't use our master bedroom for a couple of months.

It's all great (she still comes down each morning going, "I *love* my shower"), but there was one major klong along the way. After everything was done bar the final inspections, I went to test the shower out -- and there was no water. There were two knobs, mind, one to control the temp and one to control whether you want the main showerhead or the hand-held. But no combination of turning them would produce water. In a tizzy, I called the contractor, fearing that the plumbing wasn't right.

After half an hour of playing with it, he finally puzzled it out. Turning on the water has *nothing* to do with turning the knobs. Instead (and unlabeled, of course), you have to *pull out both knobs* to turn the water on. If either one is pushed in, no water.

All of which works well, mind, once you know what you are doing -- it's a smart design, allowing you to leave the temp and showerhead where you want. But from an affordance POV -- oy...

[cellio]

*Pulling*. I wouldn't have thought of that either.

That reminds me that I saw another faucet type in Cambridge (but didn't take a picture): a knob on the side of a sink faucet that you rotate to control temperature and pull to get water -- sounds sort of like your shower, but the orientation was completely puzzling to me. The plane of rotation is front to back (not side to side), and you pull it out to the side to turn it on. If I'm remembering correctly. I can't remember the last time I needed to be coached to use a sink!

[jducoeur]

Huh -- just from a muscular POV, that sounds like bad design. If the hot/cold was side-to-side, and you pulled it *out* to turn it on, I could see that. But as it is, that design uses slightly weird muscle groups to turn it on -- I suspect it would be challenging for many people *and* it's very "handed" on top of that...

[cellio]

I hadn't thought of its strong right-handedness, but yes, that's a problem. Even if your natural handedness isn't a big factor for faucets (i.e. even if you can use either hand comfortably), what about people who actually *can't* use the right hand, whether because of arthritis or it being in a cast or it being missing? This would be super-awkward.

[damont]

A single-knob control with turn-to-set-temp, pull-to-increase-flow (pushed all the way in was zero flow, ergo "off") was a very common design about 45-50 years ago for bathtubs and showers. The house my parents have lived in since 1974 had them when we moved in. (Like most plumbing control fixtures, they wore out and were replaced, though I think the guest bathroom tub still has a fixture of that design.) But it's not intuitive for someone who didn't grow up with one.