I've also thought about those dual-flush handles while sojourning in various airports. To me, up-for-2 makes more sense: most people are going to pee in the thing, and most people are going to flush down, because that's what comes most naturally. Down should be the flush that conserves best, since that's the intended function of the thing. If a down flush is not sufficient, you can just flush again. Actually, why do we need an up flush at all?
When you use more water, it comes out over the same time (roughly) as less water, so it carries more kinetic energy and can unstick solid waste from the walls, plus additionally it can help bigger pieces pass through the u-bend.
Source: I hate double-flushing toilets that are trying to save water, but always end up doing it. (I often also /pre/ flush on those low flow toilets because I'm not sure the water is sufficiently clean for splashback events.)
They are thankfully rare and unpredictable, but always a psychological consideration. I also don't think I'm the only one who questions the sanitation of what is left behind by others.
As a modestly tall guy, using a short urinal is a bad experience. It's almost impossible to control splash, and the large attack angle makes the target area appear very small. And I'm not even that tall.
Having just come back from a conference where, as a very tall person, I had to use very short urinals ... there is a serious problem in the overall height of the urinal itself. You know how when you walk up to a urinal and there's pee all over the top of it? What kind of asshole would do that, right? Unfortunately, a well-intentioned but very tall person may end up peeing on the top of a urinal placed lower to the ground because he didn't get the angle just right at first.
My metric as a tall person is, if I can comfortably rest my scrotum on the top of the urinal, it has no place in an adult setting. Seriously. Every workplace I've been to has had a substantial percentage of urinals that looked like they were sized for an elementary school.
Completely agreed - short urinals have the worst user experience for tall or dare I say average height males. In fact the average height in the US is approximately 5' 10". Claiming all urinals should be short ones seems instead like misplaced aggression or dare I say a bit of Napolean complex.
This being said selecting urinals as a comparison to enterprise mobile UX/UP patterns is a bit off-putting, sexist and simply unprofessional.
I'll take a swing at this...with the note that something can be 'mildly sexist'. Sexist, without being a four alarm fire.
The problem is it feeds pretty heavily into the notion of "Male as Default" and that when you're talking to a tech audience, you're talking exclusively to guys. The thing being discussed, compared to, etc. is supposed to be a common experience, something that you've actually thought about, or at least would go "Yeah, that is weird..."
For half the population, urinals are not so much something they interact with. By assuming it's a common experience, you're assuming the reader is male.
I was thinking the same thing when I passed that part. Some times I come across low mounted ones where I might accidentally hit the `valve on the top`, never mind the top of the actual urinal.
The mounting height is only relevant for "bucket" style urinals. "Trough" style are less hostile to tall users, and "piss-on-wall" style urinals are equally accessible to all males.
Splashback is too often ignored by urinal manufacturers. The angles of surfaces should direct all streams and all splashes toward the drain. When you have a perfectly flat back, the user has to stand further away, which enables direct drip onto the floor or aim-related scattering.
The "piss-on-wall" urinal with recessed floor drain is the... golden standard.
Really, the design constraints for female-use urinals are far more challenging. I have no hope that existing manufacturers can get close to correct there as long as every men's room I see outside of a sports stadium has "bucket" style urinals, mounted at the wrong height, with no thought to splashback or occupancy etiquette.
Thank you for enlightening me as to why female public washrooms are disgusting places. I wonder how many women are honestly so germaphobic as to never touch their rear to the toilet seat. Which results in them trying and failing to perform these kinds of feats, which in turn makes the toilet and floor disgusting, which in turn makes other women not want to go near. Perpetual cycle.
I haven't had to clean public washrooms in over 10 years now, but I will never forget the incredibly disgusting sights I had to endure in the stalls of women's washrooms. While men's stalls aren't always spic 'n span either (if any man reading this has ever taken a piss without even lifting the seat, or have poured half your liquid onto the floor - fuck you), the number of occasions on which this is encountered is a tiny fraction compared to what women routinely do.
> The "piss-on-wall" urinal with recessed floor drain is the... golden standard.
?!?
The piss-on-wall urinal is horrid. There's splashback no matter how you stand. The problem is especially exacerbated if the user is wearing sandals.
The golden standard (imo) is a water-flush bowl-style urinal mounted at an appropriate height and with wide dividers between users. TBH though, I still prefer a stall.
The advantage of trough-style urinals is not so much the large catch area, it's that they handle a large number of users in situations where rule #1 can be broken. It's unpleasant, but it sure makes the lines to the infield men's facilities shorter during the Kentucky Derby.
Whenever I read someone write about UX about anything, one common quality I spot is how negative the writer is about the object in discussion. They all take the tone that they know something more than the people who created it. Have these UX people given any considerations to countless number of factors involved in something seemingly simple as installing a urinal?
Immediately questions sprung up for me. Has the writer thought about possible regulations surrounding installation of urinal in millions of localities around the world? How about the regulations of manufacturing urinals? There's also countless rules surrounding import/export laws for 200s countries around the world. I'm not even accounting for interstate laws within US and other countries. This was just grand legal issues alone. Consider availability of time before deadlines, experts who can install the urinal, money budgeted for urinals and bathroom space, etc... You can imagine countless situations where even installing "subpar" urinals are actually really hard.
My criticism also extends to the book that started it all, The Design of Everyday Things. It's such a simplified platonic world view, I couldn't take the book seriously. The condescending tone of voice the author had was really annoying as well.
But why defend and keep regulations that make things harder to use?
I'm sure there are many regulations that are born out of sensible tradeoffs, but then the things you are defending aren't the regulations, they are the other sides of the tradeoffs.
You are right - I went to a vo-tech school that had an engineering class and our class project at the end of the year was to create a new toilet seat (not even full toilet) and the amount of R+D (which includes massive UX studies, research etc) is astronomical, and this was back in the 90's :)
Reminds me of building codes for waterless urinals. Here is California the building code requires them to be plumbed with incoming water even though no water is needed, as a sop to the plumbing community.
"Provide water distribution and fixture supply piping, sized as required elsewhere in this code, roughed-in immediately adjacent to each waterless urinal fixture installed."
The janitor gets water from a wall mounted faucet or from the sink in the janitor's closet to clean the urinals, the capped off pipe above the urinal does nothing except make the installation more expensive.
At one new building I worked in, they had to put in standard water based urinals to pass inspection then replaced them with waterless urinals for their LEED certification -- presumably now the codes allow for waterless urinals, but apparently still require the plumbing.
Such a measure allows waterless urinals to be more easily replaced by water-flush urinals.
Given the extent to which I despise low-flow toilets, for their propensity to be clogged by even the most modest of turds, I am glad to see that someone is thinking ahead on the possibility that the current popularity of no-flush urinals may fade in time.
This code makes converting new construction to flush urinals similar in cost to re-converting old construction that had been previously converted to no-flush.
It seems like a good idea to me, especially for public buildings, but even so, it is completely wrong for a government to force this one upon everybody. This is the kind of thing that gets wielded as a hammer against off-grid aficionados that install composting toilets, because they do not wish to connect to the muni water supply and sewers.
Laws that increase the minimum cost of doing something are a very significant barrier to innovations and locally appropriate technologies.
Clearly you are using an inferior low-flush toilet. I have a 1.2 gallon model (American Standard Champion 4) that has never once failed to work in a single flush, and a _lot_ of toilets fail me. Including the monstrously high-volume ones they have in the British Isles.
The author also overlooks some fairly major usability factors in urinals, such as the fact that the ones that go all the way to the floor inevitably get clogged up with the bits of trash that easily falls into them, and the fact that using a child-height urinal increases splashing considerably for taller men. I also didn't see any discussion about the splash-mitigating properties of various shapes of urinals, which I think is one of the most important factors.
You can't necessarily just decide you're a Designer of Everyday Things(TM) by critiquing them solely from the standpoint of an end-user who considers himself observant.
It also is a useless tone to take when trying to implement UX improvements. Especially if you are new, getting a team on-board with a design change you think is glaringly obvious does not work if you don't follow the basics of how to win friends and influence people.
"You want me to pull this thing?
That’s way more physical contact than I’m comfortable with."
This. Hand-operated manual flush levers on urinals need to die. Why? I happen to be flexible enough to flush urinals with my feet. I usually feel too self-conscious to do this if other people are present, but if I'm alone I do it every time. I know I'm not the only person who does this, so I also know that whatever is on the floor of bathrooms has a high probability of coating flush levers too. This behaviour is probably even more common for sit-down toilets because the handles are lower and privacy is greater.
Motion detectors work. You almost never see foot pedals, oddly enough. I really hate the two-mode flush buttons on toilets that are too small to hit with your foot, not that it will stop me from trying.
UX lesson: Pay attention to people's pre-existing habits. You can try to force people to use your interface in a certain way but, if there are no tangible benefits, they may insist on mashing it with their boots.
First thing I do when I walk into a public bathroom is stuff paper towels in my back pocket. That way, if I can't use my feet, I at least have something I can use to get between me and nastiness.
And having a few paper towels as barriers between one's skin and nasty surfaces doesn't preempt washing after. But it certainly cut down on accidentally spreading the nastiness around before you get the chance to wash up.
The state here now only installs waterless urinals.
I guess with people having the easy choice to wash their hands after touching floor contaminated handles, making the doors open out (or go doorless like in new Walmarts) solves most of it.
I think he just did you a favor. Were you previously under the impression that the handles pulled by pissing, genital-cupping, anonymous men were clean?
Eh, are you really going to die if you have to touch a urinal handle that might have had a little splash on it?
Anyway, this reminds me of an old joke:
A doctor, a forester, and an old-time Mainer walked into a restroom and used the urinals.
Afterwards, the doctor walked over to the sink, and used copious amounts of soap, hot water and hand towels washing his hands. "At med school, they taught me the importance of making sure your hands are good and clean," he said.
The forester walked over to the sink, and washed his hands, using the barest minimum amount of towels to dry off. "At forestry school, they taught me the importance of conserving natural resources," he said.
The old timer walked straight out of the bathroom, saying as he went, "I graduated from East Millinocket Elementary school, and they taught me not to piss on my fingers."
Honestly, as an Epidemiologist, you should view hand washing less as "I got pee on my hands" and far more "You have to pee regularly, and bathroom implies water, which implies the ability to wash your hands. You should probably wash your hands."
You should also wash your hands before eating. And after laundry. And all manner of other things. It's just a particularly convenient prompt.
I hate the motion sensor flushes. They almost always flush while I'm in the middle of using the urinal and end up spraying me. I've been told that the color of your shirt makes a difference, but I haven't noticed.
These urinal photos make me uncomfortable, there's basically zero privacy for any of them. Is it too much to ask to toss up some dividers between them?
One thing I noticed on my travels in the US was that it's always possible to see into cubicles. Everywhere else it's impossible to see any part of anyone using them but in the US it's normal to be able to see inside. I have no idea why that is.
The problem with the two-mode flush on toilets is that the designer is trying to be subtle in communicating "do this for urine, this for feces." If we wanted to be explicit, one button would be brown and log-shaped and one would be yellow and drop-shaped. We don't want to be crude, so we instead have more cryptic symbols.
In the united states there are very specific rules about the height and spacing of almost all plumbing fixtures in public places due to ADA and other local plumbing codes. Lots of the examples in the article are clear violations in the United States. Same goes for trip and flush levers, their identification and style.
FYI I'm a product design engineer at a plumbing fixtures manufacturer
It is usually a sign that designers are somewhat unfamiliar with the people that use their work or designers who have not learnt anything since the 99s.
In Stockholm I once went to a place where the urinal was the wall type, and at viewing height there was this big Rube Goldberg-esque contraption behind a pane of glass. As you relieved yourself you "charged" this machine somehow, and pinballs would roll through the machine. It was all pretty odd.
62 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 110 ms ] threadSource: I poop.
Source: I hate double-flushing toilets that are trying to save water, but always end up doing it. (I often also /pre/ flush on those low flow toilets because I'm not sure the water is sufficiently clean for splashback events.)
Viva the high urinal
This being said selecting urinals as a comparison to enterprise mobile UX/UP patterns is a bit off-putting, sexist and simply unprofessional.
Which is not to say it isn't, but I'd like to hear you explain/justify your claim that it is sexist.
That's usually all it takes nowadays.
The problem is it feeds pretty heavily into the notion of "Male as Default" and that when you're talking to a tech audience, you're talking exclusively to guys. The thing being discussed, compared to, etc. is supposed to be a common experience, something that you've actually thought about, or at least would go "Yeah, that is weird..."
For half the population, urinals are not so much something they interact with. By assuming it's a common experience, you're assuming the reader is male.
You must be great fun at parties.
Splashback is too often ignored by urinal manufacturers. The angles of surfaces should direct all streams and all splashes toward the drain. When you have a perfectly flat back, the user has to stand further away, which enables direct drip onto the floor or aim-related scattering.
The "piss-on-wall" urinal with recessed floor drain is the... golden standard.
Really, the design constraints for female-use urinals are far more challenging. I have no hope that existing manufacturers can get close to correct there as long as every men's room I see outside of a sports stadium has "bucket" style urinals, mounted at the wrong height, with no thought to splashback or occupancy etiquette.
I haven't had to clean public washrooms in over 10 years now, but I will never forget the incredibly disgusting sights I had to endure in the stalls of women's washrooms. While men's stalls aren't always spic 'n span either (if any man reading this has ever taken a piss without even lifting the seat, or have poured half your liquid onto the floor - fuck you), the number of occasions on which this is encountered is a tiny fraction compared to what women routinely do.
Yuck.
?!?
The piss-on-wall urinal is horrid. There's splashback no matter how you stand. The problem is especially exacerbated if the user is wearing sandals.
The golden standard (imo) is a water-flush bowl-style urinal mounted at an appropriate height and with wide dividers between users. TBH though, I still prefer a stall.
I don't think this article was designed with everyone in mind.
Immediately questions sprung up for me. Has the writer thought about possible regulations surrounding installation of urinal in millions of localities around the world? How about the regulations of manufacturing urinals? There's also countless rules surrounding import/export laws for 200s countries around the world. I'm not even accounting for interstate laws within US and other countries. This was just grand legal issues alone. Consider availability of time before deadlines, experts who can install the urinal, money budgeted for urinals and bathroom space, etc... You can imagine countless situations where even installing "subpar" urinals are actually really hard.
My criticism also extends to the book that started it all, The Design of Everyday Things. It's such a simplified platonic world view, I couldn't take the book seriously. The condescending tone of voice the author had was really annoying as well.
I'm sure there are many regulations that are born out of sensible tradeoffs, but then the things you are defending aren't the regulations, they are the other sides of the tradeoffs.
"Provide water distribution and fixture supply piping, sized as required elsewhere in this code, roughed-in immediately adjacent to each waterless urinal fixture installed."
At one new building I worked in, they had to put in standard water based urinals to pass inspection then replaced them with waterless urinals for their LEED certification -- presumably now the codes allow for waterless urinals, but apparently still require the plumbing.
Given the extent to which I despise low-flow toilets, for their propensity to be clogged by even the most modest of turds, I am glad to see that someone is thinking ahead on the possibility that the current popularity of no-flush urinals may fade in time.
This code makes converting new construction to flush urinals similar in cost to re-converting old construction that had been previously converted to no-flush.
It seems like a good idea to me, especially for public buildings, but even so, it is completely wrong for a government to force this one upon everybody. This is the kind of thing that gets wielded as a hammer against off-grid aficionados that install composting toilets, because they do not wish to connect to the muni water supply and sewers.
Laws that increase the minimum cost of doing something are a very significant barrier to innovations and locally appropriate technologies.
You can't necessarily just decide you're a Designer of Everyday Things(TM) by critiquing them solely from the standpoint of an end-user who considers himself observant.
This. Hand-operated manual flush levers on urinals need to die. Why? I happen to be flexible enough to flush urinals with my feet. I usually feel too self-conscious to do this if other people are present, but if I'm alone I do it every time. I know I'm not the only person who does this, so I also know that whatever is on the floor of bathrooms has a high probability of coating flush levers too. This behaviour is probably even more common for sit-down toilets because the handles are lower and privacy is greater.
Motion detectors work. You almost never see foot pedals, oddly enough. I really hate the two-mode flush buttons on toilets that are too small to hit with your foot, not that it will stop me from trying.
UX lesson: Pay attention to people's pre-existing habits. You can try to force people to use your interface in a certain way but, if there are no tangible benefits, they may insist on mashing it with their boots.
I guess with people having the easy choice to wash their hands after touching floor contaminated handles, making the doors open out (or go doorless like in new Walmarts) solves most of it.
Does this include the toilets at work, or just in dirty places? (Which can be a lot of places, in certain countries.)
Urinals in much of the world don't include a flush. It's probably more considerate of you to skip flushing the urinal.
Depends on where you are. They're quite common in Mexico although not universal.
Anyway, this reminds me of an old joke:
A doctor, a forester, and an old-time Mainer walked into a restroom and used the urinals.
Afterwards, the doctor walked over to the sink, and used copious amounts of soap, hot water and hand towels washing his hands. "At med school, they taught me the importance of making sure your hands are good and clean," he said.
The forester walked over to the sink, and washed his hands, using the barest minimum amount of towels to dry off. "At forestry school, they taught me the importance of conserving natural resources," he said.
The old timer walked straight out of the bathroom, saying as he went, "I graduated from East Millinocket Elementary school, and they taught me not to piss on my fingers."
You should also wash your hands before eating. And after laundry. And all manner of other things. It's just a particularly convenient prompt.
FYI I'm a product design engineer at a plumbing fixtures manufacturer