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Here in our tenth edition of Everyday Usability, we'll discuss the usability of bathrooms!
[cricket]
What, you ask, would fall under the range of "usability" other than the blatantly-obvious-I-wouldn't-write-about-it-on-this-blog-if-you-paid-me? Forseeable misuse and partitions, of course.
Alright people - stay with me, stay with me. In the picture above it shows partitions in a bathroom. I, for one, would like to extend my deepest gratitude to the entire population of partitions in bathrooms everywhere for saving me from photographic memory doom.
I had closed the bathroom on the main floor of the beach house my family was staying in because my 15 month firecracker of a son believes that doors (and I'm sure toilets too) are fun! I also made the poor assumptions that a.) the family would recognize that the door is always closed be it in use or vacant and subsequently b.) would utilize the lock accordingly. Little did I know that upon opening the door to use the facilities, they were already in use. A scant second later, the door was closed and my face looked like the DayQuil our VP should have taken in one of the early usability posts.
Then I got to thinking - I didn't see anything! The brilliant architects that threaded the soundsystem throughout the entire house and created the master suite bigger than my home put a partition in the bathroom! Did they know that I would be so assuming that I wouldn't use the common courtesy of knocking prior to entering the bathroom? My memory was saved - awkwardness mostly averted!
Of course, it got me thinking about this usability thing. If designers are truly going to make a difference with their products, both with usability and risk management, they're going to forecast the misuse of the product and design it in a way to avoid misuse. Who knows whether the house designers truly thought of that when putting the partition in the bathroom but I, for one, am forever grateful.
-RTK
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