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

[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.