Usability toilet cubicles

Oddly enough it sounds, but it will really be about usability of the toilet cubicle.

The purpose of the article is to stretch your brain a bit.

Now many are talking about usability. But not many seriously think about it.

- I’ll make a protruding socket on my site. After all, this is ... how it is ... usable!

But now I want to talk not about web interfaces and generally not about interfaces, but about the design of the toilet cubicle.

Preamble

Imagine:

Vanya (programmer) went to the toilet. Doors to all cabins are closed. And he really, really needs it!
“Surely there is a free cabin,” he thinks.

Petr Petrovich (director) is only from the airport, sits carelessly in a booth, does not touch anyone. Reads a quarterly report. He does not even realize that he forgot to close the door.

Vanya jerks open the door, and then ...

- Um ... Hello, Petr Petrovich! How did you fly?
- Yes, everything is fine, Vanya! Let's talk in about 15 minutes, in my office.

Embarrassing? Embarrassing. But Van is still very "necessary"!
Or it was not Vanya at all, but a cleaning lady who has a schedule that needs to be tidied up right now.
I agree, almost everyone almost always consciously locks the door. But what if not?

Another case:

Petr Petrovich is only from the airport, sits carelessly in a booth, does not touch anyone. Reads a quarterly report. The door seems to be (this time) closed.

And then the pen begins to slowly sink down ... ("Did you close it ?!" - Pyotr Petrovich thinks in a cold sweat).

The handle goes to the bottom ... Then someone starts to pull the door ("Fuh, still closed"), and finally making sure the status is "occupied", the stranger on the other side leaves the door alone.

Maybe this stranger did not want to bother busy Petr Petrovich at all. Just go and figure it out - free or busy!

That is the premise. Let's find a way out, save the honor / nerves of Petr Petrovich and the work of Vanya!

Formulation of the problem

Before solving a problem, it is necessary to formulate it. So, the tasks are “human”:

• Save the honor and nerves of Petr Petrovich
• Save Van’s job

We translate these goals into more general ones:

• The person outside must easily understand - freely in the booth or not
• The person inside must be safe ...
• ... and he should know about it

Competitor analysis

As in any other business, you should start by researching existing solutions (or competitors).

No. 1: Let's forget about troubles

The cheapest and angry solution:

• The door is ajar and inside no one, it means free.
• The door is closed - probably busy.

Cheap, no additional troubles at all. It is only necessary to train all users of the toilet :

• shut the door when they go to the toilet
• and open them when they go out.

And this is not so simple as it seems. Let's look through the prism of our goals:

The person outside must easily understand - freely in the booth or not	This is True only when the door is ajar. And if someone went out and slammed the door? “So is there anyone here or not?” - Vanya is at a loss.
The person inside must be safe ...	Again, the user could go in, close the door, but not lock it.
... and he should know about it	How do you know now? Is that to double-check the "locked" door. And if you do not think about it?

As you can see, there is something in this decision, but so far damp, damp.

No. 2: Let there be light!

I don’t know to whom this seems like a good idea, but there is such an option - the light switch in the booth is located next to the door handle, outside. What should, as it were, hint to Van: “The light is on - do not go, busy! Off - go, free. ”

But suddenly someone came out, closed the door and did not turn off the light? (intentionally or accidentally). Or maybe someone likes to do their job in the dark? In general, this solution is practically of no use, therefore I will not dwell on it.

No. 3: A slight hint

Now a fairly common case: below the door handle there is a small hole in which it is already “warmer”.if ("красный") {"занято"} else {"свободно"}

The person outside must easily understand - freely in the booth or not	If the door is ajar and inside no one - it means definitely free! If the door is closed and “shines red” - it’s definitely busy. And if "non-red" is also closed, then Vanya will most likely pull the handle and (possibly) will again meet eyes with Pyotr Petrovich.
The person inside must be safe ...	The same trouble. The visitor could close the door, but not lock himself.
... and he should know about it	It’s so easy not to understand (although you can remember in which position the lock is locked).

And in many castles outside there is only a small hole, in which you will not notice the red color from the first time.

No. 4: A heavy hint

Things are a bit better on airplanes:



We see a wonderful overseas “OCCUPIED” / “VACANT”, on a red / green background, respectively. And inside - a duplicated inscription and a wonderful bolt make it possible to see whether you are locked or not.

The person outside must easily understand - freely in the booth or not	Everything is exactly as in the previous version. Only now is there a big clear OCCUPIED inscription on a red background. Vanya knows English, so patiently waits by the door.
The person inside must be safe ...	The visitor could close the door, but not lock himself.
... and he should know about it	... however, now he does not need to rack his brains and decide whether it is locked. Everything is clear (how useful knowledge of English these days!).

This option is pretty good. However, it fits perfectly into the infrastructure of the aircraft , because everyone in the cabin can see if someone has walked in / out of the booth, is there a queue for her. But in an extreme case, flight attendants always sit nearby, who will kindly say, “Do not try to enter, sir! The gentleman has just taken this place. ”

In other conditions (for example, we’ll put such toilets in the office) the same rake is possible (“Pyotr Petrovich didn’t lock himself”). Although the “airplane” version is thought out more than others, as it seems to me (aircraft designers are generally well done!).

And in some secret military developments of new trains, you can see this:



He doesn’t solve the main problem (“Pyotr Petrovich didn’t lock himself”), however, he pleasantly saves his efforts to “walk to the end of the car and check”.

Let's see what remains.

No. 5: Our answer to Chamberlain

Public toilets usually have the form:

And the point here is not so much in the door handles. At the bottom of the door there is a gap in which you can clearly see whether it is occupied there or freely.

For some reason, it seems to me that this was necessarily a secret Soviet invention against foreign spies, so that it wouldn’t be common for them to do their dirty espionage affairs in Our Soviet Toilets.

And of course it’s convenient for the cleaners - you can immediately see whether they are free or if a belated guest is left, which interferes with cleaning during lunch.

Lyric lyrics, and this option is only suitable for public toilets, where there is a large flow of people who do not know each other, who most likely will never meet again. Therefore, everyone feels great, no constraints and complexes. Even the fact that a woman with a mop and a bucket is wandering in the middle of the men's toilet is not very embarrassing.

The person outside must easily understand - freely in the booth or not	Who is not lazy - easily recognizes the "occupation" of the cabin. To laziness - see above.
The person inside must be safe ...	On the one hand, Petr Petrovich felt excellent in the toilet of the airport. But on the other - now he is in his office, where everyone knows and respects him, because he can be a little ashamed of someone else's presence outside.
... and he should know about it	And again - you can not vouch for the fact that the door is locked.

Solutions

By competitors walked. Now let loose our thoughts. American in the
beginning . What does it mean? I will explain later.

Pyotr Petrovich did not lock himself

This is perhaps the main problem that none of the above methods could defeat.

To solve it, you can try to convey to the visitor that he forgot to lock himself.
Therefore, we build in a door system that determines the "locked" door. And if not locked, then (for example):

• a large red panel on the inside of the door starts flashing right in front of Pyotr Petrovich, with the text: “Lock the door immediately!”
• and / or (un) pleasant female / male voice begins to repeat: “Achtung! The door is not locked! ”

It smacks of a nervous breakdown, right? there is nothing worse than a sharp annoying warning.

We will discard importunity, soften colors, remove voices ... and understand the attractiveness of the “airplane” version. We see that it is not at all necessary to integrate an electronic locking recognition system into the door. A mechanical valve that changes the word “Busy” / “Free” at the visitor’s eye level is enough .

Pyotr Petrovich did not lock himself II

Now let's think about - what can be improved here?

And here's what: we make Pyotr Petrovich notice the inscription and lock the door on his own. Firstly, there is a risk that he simply does not heed our warnings. And secondly, there is an opinion that if the system can do something without the help of the user, then it should do it without the help of the user .

So why not make the lock automatically lock when you close the door?
Such castles have long been a dime a dozen in many hotels.

Well, "fasten" to the lock mechanism a change in the inscription (on both sides of the door) - "Busy" / "Free"

Problem

However, in this embodiment, a problem arises - it is necessary to distinguish between a door closed from the inside and a door closed from the outside . Those. when closing the door, you need to determine whether there is a person inside the cabin or not?



For example, a passive infrared motion detector can handle this task. You just need to connect this system together - a sensor, auto-close the door and set an alert.

The person outside must easily understand - freely in the booth or not	There is no mistake. An inscription outside will clearly state the truth.
The person inside must be safe ...	And this will also be done. The door will automatically lock when closed ...
... and he should know about it	... and the visitor will see an alert inside the booth.

It should also provide for the case when a person went inside and somehow badly closed the door. There must be some kind of nerve-straining message.

What happened? The optimal protection system for the visitor's booth is as follows:

• The door lock automatically closes if a person slams the door from the inside (due to an IR sensor inside the cabin)
• And to those who are inside, and to those who are outside, the inscription on the door is clearly visible: “Busy” / “Free”

Confidential, convenient, understandable.

But why did I call this decision “American”?
Because we reasoned logically and goals seemed to have been achieved ... but that's only at a high price!
Expensive equipment - for each toilet cubicle; a complex system of the relationship between electronics. But what if she "crashes"? To sit Peter Petrovich locked until the end of time.

Although with due attention and investment, everything should work out perfectly!

Our solution!

And now, in our opinion ! We will try to reduce the cost of the solution without losing quality.

I mentioned the above about our public toilets for a reason. Is it true that a solution with a gap at the door is different from others? We will try to push it further!

What was the problem there? The fact that Pyotr Petrovich was shy that much more was visible in the gap under the door than he would have liked. How to avoid this? Make the clearance smaller!

But how do I look there, in such a crack? - thinks Lidia Vasilievna, a cleaner, briefly mentioned above

And everything is simple - no need to look there! We put a lamp at the base of the toilet, something like this:



So we solved the problem of indication from the outside (now Vanya knows exactly which cabin is busy and which is not).

How now to solve the problem of “protection” and indications inside (without resorting to complex electronics) ?

We fasten the door in a cunning way: so that in a free state it always opens itself by itself (but not for swinging, so as not to impede the passage of it). I think it’s really possible to do this:

Then we:

• [or] we hang from the outside of the lamp so that the guest who went inside sees his shadow on the wall and understands that it is necessary to close the door
• [or] we hang inside the mirror (s) so that behind the back you can see the doorway.

The person outside must easily understand - freely in the booth or not	By the light and shadow coming from under the door, as well as by the openness and closure of the door, Vanya clearly understands where he is busy and where not.
The person inside must be safe ...	We can say that we are forcing Petr Petrovich to lock the door in 100% - otherwise it will simply open!
... and he should know about it	Peter Petrovich is aware.

Here is a solution, cheaply, angrily and efficiently! In my opinion, it’s completely “in our opinion”.

Afterword

In my opinion, both options deserve a living, have their own "+" and "-". But the main thing that I wanted to bring with this article was usability, it is around us, everywhere, in the world of our things and our lives. And if we want to live in our world “conveniently and comfortably” - we should think about its structure.

PS: a request to the administrators - I would like a separate blog under such topics, something like "Abnormal usability".